You Hurt My Feelings (2023)

Love in the Time of Uncertainty

“You do what you must do, and you do it well,” sings Bob Dylan near the end of his 1975 album "Blood on the Tracks.” “I'll do it for you, honey baby, can't you tell.”

But what if honey baby doesn't think you do what you must do particularly well?

That's the modest premise of "You Hurt My Feelings," director Nicole Holofcener’s reunion with actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The "Veep" and "Seinfeld" star is a Manhattanite author who overhears her husband, Don, a therapist played by Tobias Menzies, saying that he dislikes her unpublished novel despite his to-her-face declarations to the contrary.

Beth's struggles with this discovery and whether or not to confront her husband over it are just components of the larger picture Holofcener paints, one that asks a more existential question: What if you discover that you're not good at the thing you always thought you were good at?

The film's central characters have all achieved a level of success that's led them to believe they are, in fact, good at what they do. Beth recently published a memoir that did "OK" or "more than just OK," depending on who you ask. Her husband, Don, is a therapist that one patient declares is "too expensive for me." Beth's sister Sarah, the always-welcome Michaela Watkins, is an interior designer catering to the posh tastes of New York's upper crust. Her husband Mark, Arian Moayed of "Succession," is an actor amped to have been cast play and recognized on the street as "that guy from the Pumpkin movie."

But all four begin to doubt their professional prowess. Beth's agent gives her first draft a frosty reception. A couple Don has counseled for years asks for a refund; another client mutters about his uselessness. Sarah begins questioning her taste as she struggles to find the right light fixture for a client. And Mark's fragile actor ego suffers a blow that has him considering leaving the profession.

Our family is our safe haven when doubts like these enter our minds. They set us straight by telling us how good we are at what we do, that the people telling us otherwise don't know what they're talking about. But, as the film points out, that's often bullshit. Our loved ones are the ignorant ones. They aren’t experts in our professions. They placate us because they love us.

This is driven home by the relationship between Beth and her son, an aspiring writer working on his first play. Beth repeatedly tells him it's going to be great. He incredulously asks her how she knows that when she hasn't read a word of it, begging her to leave open the possibility that it's bad. He yearns for honesty that most of us can’t give, or perhaps even receive.

He wants the truth—clarity in a time of uncertainty.

Watching the film, I couldn’t help but think that it’s a product of our uncertain times. The  questioning of basic fundamentals about ourselves reflects an anxiety at large in the world today.

January 6th left Americans wondering, "Are we really all that good at democracy?" And after all the innovations and gains humanity achieved over the past 300 hundred years, we're now faced with the specter of a planet striking back against our excesses. Are we really all that good at civilization when we're making our planet uninhabitable? The latest threat to our existence is artificial intelligence that may be able to do our jobs better than we ever could.

All this may be what Don is referencing when he asks Beth a question near the section of the film where a climax might be found (I’m not sure it has one): "The world is falling apart, and this is what you're worried about?" His point being, there are bigger problems than what he thinks about the first draft of her novel. And he’s right. But when the world is unstable, we begin to question everything, including ourselves.

At least we have our loved ones to tell us everything is going to be OK.

And in the end, that’s what “You Hurt My Feelings” does.  The dark themes conjured by the film are almost imperceptible in its defiant slightness that revels in small chuckles and quirky, smile inducing humor (Beth and Sarah are mean to homeless people in the nicest way possible; one of the characters is obsessed with socks).

In the end, the film is happy to confine itself to the creature comforts of a NYC walk-and-talk comedy where the upper-middle-class share their neurosis over candle-lit dinners and strolls through mid-Town Manhattan, with a couple requisite off-Broadway play scenes thrown in.

Many critics are telling this film how good it is. But I can’t. It could have been sharper. It could have been more honest. I hope Holofcener appreciates my candor.