Courtesy A24

Movie Review: You Hurt My Feelings

07:00 May 30, 2023
By: Fritz Esker

A novelist's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) marriage is thrown into turmoil when she overhears her therapist husband (Tobias Menzies) telling a friend he did not like her latest novel in the charming new comedy You Hurt My Feelings.

Louis-Dreyfus' Beth is a published writer teaching a creative writing class at a New York City college but is still insecure about her work. She's good enough to be published, but once she's published, not a lot of people seem to read her books. So she is thrown for a loop when she overhears her otherwise supportive husband's comments. Her husband is also going through his own frustrations as he finds it increasingly harder to connect with and help his patients (scenes featuring David Cross and Amber Tamblyn as a particularly combative married couple get a lot of laughs).

Creating characters that are flawed in recognizably human ways but still sympathetic and likable is more challenging than it may seem, but writer-director Nicole Holofcener is up to the task here and in her previous films (definitely check out Enough Said, also starring Louis-Dreyfus). The economical script (the film runs only 93 minutes) does a strong job of conveying the idea that white lies will happen in any loving relationship and that even caring, decent, well-intentioned people will invariably disappoint and frustrate their loved ones some of the time.

I am a broken record on the point I am about to make, but it's one I will continue to make: if you complain about how Hollywood does not make original movies for adults anymore, then you need to put your money where your mouth is and see films like You Hurt My Feelings in theaters.

Sign Up!

FOR THE INSIDE SCOOP ON DINING, MUSIC, ENTERTAINMENT, THE ARTS & MORE!