“You Hurt My Feelings,” October 15, 2023, DVD. It’s been a while since I’ve reported on films viewed, in part due to continuing medical issues. That’s left me to try to catch up here. I liked but was not overwhelmed by this family dramedy about honesty in important relationships, especially family, from Nicole Holofcener. She also wrote and directed one of my favorites from a decade ago, “Enough Said,” with James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Louis-Dreyfus stars in this one as well, along with Tobias Menzies. She’s an author and teacher who’s struggling to publish her second book, a novel as opposed to a memoir like her first. Menzies is a therapist bored with his long-term patients who are totally committed to the loops of their lives. He is also not thrilled with the second book but keeps telling her he is to encourage her. Are these white lies or violations? What about how parents relate to their children to encourage them? What are appropriate behaviors here? How can we get our loved ones and ourselves to make the changes necessary to move forward? I know I’ve failed at that in more ways than one. How are therapists supposed to ‘assist’ their patients and what are responsibilities? Not to mention those of the patients in this weird world of ours (David Cross excels here—no shock that.)
I like the premise, although it felt a bit too much like a TV show, and given the NY – albeit Brooklyn – setting, a bit too much like a certain TV show given some of L-D’s ticks. Still, the questions posed are certainly worth the exploration. What about a reframe outside the intellectual universe?