The desire for external validation is related to, but not the same thing as, the desire to be good at something – and so it's notable that, although Beth desires approval from her husband and from the literary world, she doesn't seem all that invested in her craft. Holofcener’s screenplays have been nominated for a number of awards, including a BAFTA and an Oscar for Can You Ever Forgive Me? ( Supplied: Roadshow) Everything the viewer learns about Beth's work, from the title of her memoir (I Had to Tell It, which gets played for a bit of Who's on First?-esque comedy) to the content (if her father had been more than just verbally abusive, Beth half-jokes, perhaps the book would have sold better) suggests that it's no under-sung work of genius. He resists Beth's exhortations to share his writing with her, having been troubled in his schooldays by the gap between her effusive praise and his sometimes mediocre performance.Īnd yet, for a film with characters so invested in their work, You Hurt My Feelings seems to proffer quite a generous view of mediocrity. Beth and Don's son, Elliott (Owen Teague), manages a downtown weed dispensary while harbouring aspirations of becoming a playwright. The calculation gets trickier when the people on the receiving end are closer to home.Īs in Please Give, the central couple's offspring proves most sensitive to the way in which familial cheerleading – undoubtedly a vital impulse, and one revealed to have been sorely lacking in Beth's own youth – can register as a form of gaslighting. ![]() Of course, it's easy enough to defend the idea of bending the truth of one's feelings in the name of social niceties, or for the sake of fostering openness and positivity in the classroom. So if we have thoughts about tweaking something … she's all ears,” Louis-Dreyfus told Collider. Beth, for instance, feigns appreciation for the ill-formed ideas her creative writing students pitch her writing students in turn feign interest in her memoir, which none of them have read. Little white lies pepper everyone's days in You Hurt My Feelings, traded as social currency. (Incidentally, every member of the film's ensemble gives an entirely worthy performance – including Arian Moayed, as Sarah's husband – much cuddlier here than as Succession's Stewy and Jeannie Berlin, as Beth and Sarah's distinctly un-cuddly mother.) She tells Beth that she herself praises her husband's work as an actor, even when she deems it not so praise-worthy. As an upscale interior designer, she is used to catering to the tastes of others. For anyone who's ever poured themselves into a creative pursuit – Beth and Holofcener included – this statement likely sounds near paradoxical. "He loves you, even if he doesn't like your book," soothes Beth's sister, Sarah (Michaela Watkins, The Dropout). Holofcener told Vogue the characters are drawn from her life: "You don’t really need to drum up a lot of fake stuff to make relationships fascinating." ( Supplied: Roadshow) Their largely contented, mutually supportive equilibrium is upset when she overhears him – in the undignified setting of a sporting goods store, no less – admitting that he doesn't actually like her novel at all. Her husband, Don (Tobias Menzies, The Crown), has been a font of encouragement, providing nothing but positive feedback on each and every draft. This film's premise is a rich one: Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, playing a Holofcener analog for the second time, after 2013's Enough Said) is a writer and teacher with a moderately successful memoir to her name, now looking to venture into fiction. Her characters – often based on herself, her family members and her friends – are far from dead and buried, but their proclivities are almost as hard-wired as their bones. She approaches social dynamics as a sort of archaeologist: More tender than Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David but still ruthless in her excavation, she digs without any pretence of being able to rearrange the pieces into a more favourable configuration. In You Hurt My Feelings, the writer-director asks – amongst other knotty questions – where is the line between honesty and cruelty? Between reassurance and hot air? And how does one determine which tack is best suited to any given occasion?ĭon't expect any definitive answers, however that's not Holofcener's prerogative. ![]() Holofcener wrote the screenplay over several years but the film was shot in just 22 days.
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