You Hurt My Feelings (2023) - Movie Review

This might sound odd coming from someone who literally criticises people’s work for a living, but actually hearing criticism about your own work… kinda sucks. I may have a little too much fun when writing about stuff I don’t like (just look at my total lack of etiquette when looking at EXMas for FilmInk), but I try and approach each film I review with the understanding that people worked on this. That each production is the culmination of a lot of time and effort being focused to a single point, with many people putting in their hours to make it happen. But as part of that same understanding, I also see the need to be honest about what I think of a given film. The best advice I’ve ever been given about this field (cheers Travis) is deceptively simple: Don’t say you liked it if you didn't, and don't say you didn't like it if you did.

I say that that’s ‘deceptively’ simple because, while we all seem to be all too willing to read random strangers to utter filth over the most minor shit, that can become a bit more difficult when the person you want to criticise is someone you know personally. An aspect of the ‘separate the art from the artist’ notion that doesn’t regularly get brought up is how that applies to those in relationships, be it romantic or professional. Like, you want to help them and give constructive feedback, so that they can become better at their craft, but when you care deeply about them as a person, the idea of telling them anything less than what will make them happy can feel... cruel?

It's this social dilemma that makes up the core of this film, the latest from writer/director Nicole Holofcener whose work on Can You Ever Forgive Me? and The Last Duel also looked at our strained relationship with honesty. It follows author Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her marriage counsellor husband Don (Tobias Menzies) as they both struggle with straight-talking. With Beth, it’s how everyone in her social life, including her husband, insist that her new book is good… but then she talks with her literary agent and gets a different story. And with Don, he finds himself trying to help but being afraid to tell struggling couples what they need to hear (framed with a recurring bit of scene-stealing from David Cross and Amber Tamblyn), and generally feeling burnt-out at work.

The performances are terrific across the board, including Michaela Watkins as Beth’s sister Sarah and Arian Moayed as her husband Mark, and help anchor just how real this can be. Speaking as a writer (and as someone whose partner is also creatively-inclined), a lot of what this film depicts about being on both ends of the “what do you think of this?” conversation is quite accurate. Showing this kind of tempered decorum in polite conversation is something I was expected to learn throughout my formative years (autistics are somewhat notorious for not bullshitting), and while I certainly hope I haven’t pulled this kind of well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful social behaviour myself, I can’t say I haven’t been tempted by it. Someone I care about worked really hard on something and… well, I don’t want to hurt their feelings.

Now, given the presence of that titular phrase in modern discourse, where people wilfully confuse saying what they want to say for saying what others need to hear, I respect how Holofcener deals with the topic. She's firm but fair in a way that feels relevant to the modern day but without giving fuel to people who want carte blanche to be shitty to others. She highlights the need for honesty as part of healthy interaction between people, where we should be able to critique other peoples’ labour of love without that becoming a critique of that person as a person. With how much personal time and effort we tend to pour into our little projects, we come to consider them part of ourselves; we are the things we create. The trust we place in others to judge our creations fairly can rub against the trust we place in them to judge us fairly, and out of fear that we can’t take the criticism, they hold it back and end up doing us an even greater disservice.

While the laser focus onto this one aspect of creativity as it pertains to honesty in relationships can make this feel a bit one-note at times, its slim run-time of 90 minutes and change lets it ruminate on the subject and explore the often-hilarious reactions people can have to it without feeling like it’s running on fumes. Louis-Dreyfus is quite familiar with these kinds of oblivious and self-centred characters at this point, and she’s consistently funny here, as is everyone else. It’s a gentle reminder that it’s okay to be not so gentle, and that honesty is the best policy. Not always the easiest, but still the best.