With there being all kinds of movies coming out from week to week it’s hard for little indie films to make it sometimes. A24 is one of those companies that have invested very well in arthouse directors and indie films that premiered at film festivals like the Sundance Film Festival. The latest example of this is they made and premiered the most recent offering from writer/director Nicole Holofcener You Hurt My Feelings starring Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. It premiered to mixed reviews.
Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) is a writing teacher in New York while also trying to write her second book. She is married to Don (Tobias Menzies) who is a therapist. They have a son Elliott (Owen Teague) and frequently entertain Dreyfuss’s character’s sister and her husband. They all have struggles with each other, in their personal lives and at work. They are people that seem to be not very happy to me.
Holofcener tries to write what she perceives to be a clever, interesting story about the lives of a family in New York but ends up being a story that drove me completely insane while watching it. I couldn’t stand these people at all. They are pretentious and annoying throughout the film. I honestly didn’t care about their gripes with one another or any of their problems. There was one scene that I agreed with throughout the entire movie. That’s not very good.
Look, I’m a person who hasn’t necessarily been very happy at various jobs I’ve had in the past but these people seem miserable to me. I mean why make a film about a bunch of miserable people who don’t have any redeeming qualities? At least that’s how they are written to me. I’ve seen Louis-Dreyfuss in sitcoms and various other television shows. She’s a funny actress. I didn’t like her one bit in this movie. And Menzies is a good dramatic actor in Outlander, Rome, and other series. I couldn’t stand him in this. These were the tip of the iceberg on my gripes with this film.
Holofcener has made a previous movie with Louis-Dreyfuss called Enough Said where she co-starred with James Gandolfini. These two had chemistry and I cared about their characters. Menzies and Louis-Dreyfuss had no chemistry whatsoever. The inciting incident between them is ridiculous to me. I didn’t care about what got them at odds with one another. These people’s lives were just not that interesting to me. Maybe people in New York might vaguely be interested in this but not me. I wanted to poke my eyes out if I had to watch one more minute of this film. Thank God it was only ninety minutes long.
A24 has mined a lot of gold from indie directors and small budget films like Everything Everywhere All at Once. This is just not one of those cases. They made a mistake making this film especially after the reviews out of Sundanceare are any indication. Holofcener and Louis-Dreyfuss have done much better stuff than this in the past and I’m sure they’ll do good stuff in the future. This just wasn’t my cup of tea and I love a good cup of ice tea. This was like unsweetened tea for me. I can’t stand unsweetened tea. This is a total misfire for everyone involved.
1 star
Dan Skip Allen
From the Fourth Row! 