Ten years after the rather wonderful romcom Enough Said, writer-director Nicole Holofcener has re-teamed with Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the altogether odder You Hurt My Feelings. A story of a very middle class New York marriage in a minor key crisis, it seems like a perfect fit for filmmaker and star, but it feels a lot less comfortable in practice. Shot through with a couple of moments of brilliance, the odd structure and cast of whiny artists and academics make getting to the good stuff a bit of a slog.

Louis-Dreyfus stars as Beth, a mostly non-fiction writer following up a relatively successful and acclaimed memoir with her first novel, the many, many drafts of which have all been read by her therapist husband Don (Tobias Menzies), who constantly reassures her of its greatness. In some slightly contrived-feeling circumstances, though, Beth overhears Don giving his honest, and scathing, opinion of the book to a friend, rocking not just Beth’s confidence in herself as a creative, but also in Don’s honesty throughout their entire marriage.

It’s a fun premise, potent in its initial emotional impact on Beth while maintaining an air of ‘look at these well-off people worrying about nothing’ detachment – even the title feels a little mocking – that Holofcener finds a solid balance between whenever Beth and Don are sharing the screen. Yet, this doesn’t happen often enough; You Hurt My Feelings is very vignette-heavy as we watch Beth and Don (and Beth’s younger sister Sarah, played by Michaela Watkins) at their respective workplaces, dealing with students (Beth also works as a writing teacher at The New School) and clients.

It makes for some really jagged pacing throughout much of the first two acts, the story never quite reaching its stride, while the vignettes themselves are a real mixed bag. Some are funny, and the running gag of Don actually being a crappy therapist is consistently enjoyable, but some just drag on, as the annoyingly needy main cast deal with annoyingly stupid supporting characters. Even with a strong trio of leading performances, the gags just aren’t consistently funny enough to make up for the general sense of irritation that a lot of these moments leave you with.

Luckily, things really pick up in the final third, Holofcener really sticking the landing of her premise with a series of incredibly incisive and insightful confrontations between Beth, Don, Sarah, and Beth and Don’s 23 year old son Elliot (Owen Teague, terrific). These scenes are funny and thoughtful – one moment about the transition from seeing your idealised self through your parents’ eyes to suddenly being consciously confronted with who *you* actually are will be rattling around in my head for quite a while.

It’s a great way to end everything on an up note, and certainly enough to make you forgive most of the flaws along the way. If You Hurt My Feelings could have kept up this sort of quality from start to finish, we’d be looking at one of the year’s best, smartest films, but there’s just too much filler – Holofcener is one of our most consistently interesting writers, yet a good few sequences here feel like they could have come from anyone. It’s not enough to hurt your feelings, but it might just leave you with a tinge of disappointment.

3/5

Written and Directed by Nicole Holofcener

Starring; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins

Runtime: 93 mins

Rating: 15