, throbs away more insistently than ever. Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is teaching a writing class and has finished a new novel, which she worries isn't going to measure up to her previous memoir – an account of the (merely) verbal abuse she suffered from her father. How will her writing fare in a marketplace with new voices, pushier agendas? Her husband Don (Tobias Menzies), a therapist who's lost his mojo, reassures her constantly that the new book's a winner. But privately, he dislikes it – which Beth finds out when eavesdropping on a conversation between him and Mark (Arian Moayed), the partner of her younger sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins). The shock of that moment sends her reeling, like an infidelity. If the dramatic repercussions of it are fairly minor, it serves as an excuse for Holofcener to dissect how honesty works within a marriage, and also in people's professional lives. Mark's an actor, Sarah an interior designer, and both are vulnerable to imposter syndrome. Don's clients are routinely dissatisfied. Everyone's status is buoyed by white lies all around, the tact of strangers and kindness of soulmates. To Holofcener's face, a Don-like character might celebrate this screenplay for being both emotionally astute and funny. Behind her back, he might waver on the latter point. True, when Beth's own work turns out to be news to her writing class, we get one wittily awkward scene, played through clenched teeth by an energised Louis-Dreyfus. But there are strained parts – say, the sisters pretending to enjoy volunteering at a donation centre for the homeless. No one's demanding belly laughs from Holofcener, but there's only so far that lapping waves of){kind=link}
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is on energetic form in Nicole Holofcener’s mild-mannered but effective New York-set ensemble comedy-drama
Do the problems of a few moneyed New Yorkers add up to a hill of beans in this crazy world? To different degrees, the people in You Hurt My Feelings may know the bubble of privilege they live inside. But the question, in this latest chattily insightful comedy-drama from Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said; Please Give), throbs away more insistently than ever.
Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is teaching a writing class and has finished a new novel, which she worries isn’t going to measure up to her previous memoir – an account of the (merely) verbal abuse she suffered from her father. How will her writing fare in a marketplace with new voices, pushier agendas?
Her husband Don (Tobias Menzies), a therapist who’s lost his mojo, reassures her constantly that the new book’s a winner. But privately, he dislikes it – which Beth finds out when eavesdropping on a conversation between him and Mark (Arian Moayed), the partner of her younger sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins).
The shock of that moment sends her reeling, like an infidelity. If the dramatic repercussions of it are fairly minor, it serves as an excuse for Holofcener to dissect how honesty works within a marriage, and also in people’s professional lives. Mark’s an actor, Sarah an interior designer, and both are vulnerable to imposter syndrome. Don’s clients are routinely dissatisfied. Everyone’s status is buoyed by white lies all around, the tact of strangers and kindness of soulmates.