You Hurt My Feelings

If you like Julia Louis-Dreyfus or Tobias Menzies, you may find this enjoyable to watch, as both do a fine job with their roles. Otherwise, this will seem like a slow way to spend a couple hours. The plot wanders around searching for a dramatic climax or a storyline that leads somewhere. However, it doesn't get anywhere in particular. It's much like a comedy routine that just wanders from one story to another. Not too surprising, as Julia Louis-Dreyfus helped make "Seinfeld" the somewhat chaotic program it was. Funny, often, but as a movie, it leaves me wanting a more structured story. A better title would have helped too. Something more like, "How we offend people when trying to be supportive" would have been illustrative, albeit not as pithy. The one theme that did seem to be reinforced was scenery of New York, especially as experienced by privileged people. That was interesting for about 30 minutes, but then the movie needed to deliver more message, if it had hopes of being satisfying. I rate it a 5 for the fine acting of the leading characters, but no higher for lacking a better script and story development. The result looked like it needed refining to clearly communicate a message.

There's a message in this story that's quite valid, how we talk to those we love, to those we're married, saying things they want to hear, telling the truth we just don't dare, to keep the peace and to avoid, becoming harried. But this message is recycled and repeated, on and on the same angle is being treated, enforcing becomes a bore, makes for an overwhelming chore, you'll walk away feeling as if you've been depleted. Although you may see things you recognise, observe, but my advice is do not change the way you serve, if you're honest to a fault, you may find life becomes a jolt, and you'll only get responses you deserve.

'You Hurt My Feelings' is a terrible title for this or any movie. And I wish that was all I had to complain about. But it's not. It's the film, specifically the writing, that left me cold. Here's the theme. We all tell little lies to people so that they're not discouraged about themselves. Their painting is not as good as you tell them. Their novel. Their performance. That's it. That's what the film's about. And if you're saying, That's not enough to hang 90 minutes on, I'd say, You're right. This film has no center, no stakes, nothing for anyone to care about. The acting? It's as though the cast knows the truth of the previous statement. The story. A husband tells his wife (Dreyfus) her novel's great but she then overhears him saying just the opposite. Think of 'I Love Lucy's' Lucy Ricardo overhearing husband Ricky telling Fred Mertz a secret that Lucy misconstrues. It's a TV sit-com for goodness sake. But there's more. Another wife tells her husband his acting's good, but she knows that it's not. A son is under the impression that he's as exceptional as his parents told him he was. A shrink who does a bad job is not confronted by his patients. And on, and on, and on. And if you're saying that it's an entertaining slice of life, I ask you, Entertaining? Entertaining? Tell me where. And when? And who? And I'll bet anything that you can't. Even if you, like the characters in the film, don't want to hurt the film-maker's feelings.

In every good film or at least entertaining film there is that moment where you understand why the film was made. This film doesn't have one of those moments. There are zero stakes. Zilch. Even though the lead may get upset by her husband, at no point is there ever any indication their relationship would actually be threatened. The "stakes" are dirty looks and hurt feelings. To give an example of how "not important" almost any scene in this film is, there is a sequence where the protagonist and her mother visit a doctor. Things happen and things are said that would ring as a typical scenario for this type of sequence, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot, and then the film just sort of shambles onto the next scene. No clear explanation as to why it happened. Just filler I guess? That's what this film is though, the plot itself would be filler in other more interesting content. I know films and tv aren't what they used to be, but could we get...you know, a point to them existing at all?

I am a 58-year-old film buff, and this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in a theater. It is boring, stiff, dry, and very rarely funny--and when so, only mildly amusing. I heard only a handful of chuckles in the audience. Dialogue is tortured and repetitive. A respectable script editor would have crossed out most of it with a red pencil and written "please rewrite" in the margin of every page. The four main characters have cliche jobs that barely benefit humanity (novelist, actor, high-end interior designer, and therapist), and everyone is weak and whiney. The "conflict" is so lamely small: Julia L-D wrote a novel and she discovers that her husband doesn't like it. So what? Who cares? I guess the theme is that this segment of society (white upper-middle-class) is always overly nice and supportive of their spouses and children when they should be more honest and critical. Yawn. We've known that since the '90s. These are lame-o people with petty problems, and we don't empathize with them, care about them, or like them. I don't think the story has a climax, and the resolution is weak and unsatisfying. There is no real emotion in this movie at all. Usually small movies at least have a heart, but this film has no heart or soul. The last scene is a nothing burger. Even the movie's music is abysmal--like funeral music played really low. And though the setting is upscale New York in the summertime, we don't get to experience the joy of the setting. Shots are all close and tight; the movie feels claustrophobic. The only redeeming quality is the angry couple in therapy; they were genuinely funny. One of the other therapy patients, the heavy one, was a good character too. I find it troubling that reviews for this film are so good. One critic called it a "small masterpiece." It's as if the Oakland A's finished with a 43-119 record and sportswriters rated their season performance as a 9 out of 10. Makes ya wanna pull your hair out...