Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

The most impressive thing about You Hurt My Feelings is the relative insignificance of its central conflict, and how compelling, warm, fun and charming it is in spite of that.

To be fair, the conflict is not insignificant to the characters, or particularly Beth, as played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Beth is an author, has published a modestly successful memoir and has been working on a novel for the past two years, which she has given, draft after draft, to her husband to read. Her husband, Don, is played in a perfectly cast Tobias Menzies—who, incidentally, is 49 years old, as compared to Louis-Dreyfus at 62. His being younger than her is mentioned in the film, although they don’t say by how much; Julia Louis-Dreyfus still looks so fantastic that they could have played characters the same age.

And there is a lot of insecurity at play in the story here, although really none of it has anything to do with age—with the exception of Don’s vanity coming to the fore over wrinkles around his eyes. The “big issue” at play, actually, is the discovery that Don has been telling Beth all along that he loves her novel. But, she overhears him confessing to a friend that he doesn’t like it at all, and this leaves her spinning.

As written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, who previously directed Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the lovely Enough Said (2013), You Hurt My Feelings is concerned about much more than this lie that a husband tells his wife out of love and compassion but still winds up hurting her. It’s just the greatest example of a fairly common theme among all the characters, which is basically what morally gray things we do in what we consider to be the best interests of the people we love.

These things apply also to Beth’s sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) and her husband Mark (Arian Moayed), respectively an interior decorator and a struggling actor. Ditto Beth and Don’s 23-year-old son Eliot (Owen Teague), who is also an aspiring writer and winds up offering some perspective on Beth’s neuroses at just the right time.

I really enjoyed all of these aspects of You Hurt My Feelings. For once, an engaging movie that’s not about something vital or possibly fatal—no one’s world is either literally or even figuratively falling apart, even if it does feel like it for a brief period. These are just normal, everyday—okay, white and upper-middle-class and by some standards maybe even wealthy—people, having fairly regular, everyday interpersonal problems. The magic here is in the telling of the story, with the unique touch by Holofcener.

Back in 2023, I called Enough Said “Simple and Charming.” Maybe that is just Nicole Holofcener’s brand, because the exact same can be said of You Hurt My Feelings. This one does deftly weave together a lot of seemingly disparate narrative threads, such as Don struggling to feel effective in his career as a therapist. This allows some fun guest stars, such as David Cross and Amber Tamblyn as a married couple incapable of getting along.

In the end, everyone comes to terms with whatever relatively minor issue they’re dealing with. Along the way, it’s just a joy to hang out with these people; Julia Louis-Dreyfus remains a consummate performer, particularly of comedy. And this film has its fair share of laughs, delivering truly everything that you could want or expect from it.

*Tobias Menzies and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are confronted by some hard—but also funny—truths: which is to say, white lies.*

Overall: B+