There are some comic gems in this New York film about neurotic, creative people but overall it failed to engage me.
The casting is excellent, specially Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld and Veep), who stars as Beth, a writer who has just finished her new book and is anxiously awaiting feedback from her agent.
Beth is happily married to Don (Tobias Menzies), a therapist who is starting to wonder if his methods are really helping his patients.
Don has always said he loves Beth’s writing and she is shattered when she happens to overhear him confiding to a friend that he really doesn’t like the new book.
Her reaction is dramatic. How could he have lied to her like this? How could he love her if he doesn’t like her work? She starts sleeping on the couch and their whole relationship is threatened.
Their son Eliot (Owen Teague) is trying to write a play but meanwhile he runs a cannabis shop. He is critical of his parents for being over-encouraging when he was young.
Don is having his own problems.
Two of his clients, a bickering married couple played by real-life husband and wife David Cross and Amber Tamblyn, are so unhappy with the lack of results after two years of Don’s counselling that they are threatening to sue him for the return of their fees, $33,000.
Beth’s sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) is an interior designer dealing with a hard-to-please client. Her husband ( Arian Moayed) is struggling in his acting career but she always tells him he is great, whether he was or not.
In contrast, Jeanie Berlin (The Heartbreak Kid) is refreshingly blunt as Sarah and Beth’s over-critical mother.
After 30 years of making movies, acclaimed writer-director Nicole Holofcener well knows the insecurities of creative people, but You Hurt My Feelings feels too much like the privileged rich indulging in trivial first-world problems.
Is it better to be brutally honest or to tell white lies to save people’s feelings?
You Hurt My Feelings is pleasant enough but far from memorable.
You Hurt My Feelings opens on Thursday, June 15, at Luna Leederville, Luna On SX and the Windsor, with advance screenings on Saturday, June 10.
Watch the trailer…
