Courtesy of Sundance
According to novelist Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the adjective “adorable” shouldn’t be used to describe the elderly, since it’s better suited for babies and, therefore, infantilizing and condescending in other contexts. She’d be sorry to hear, then, that You Hurt My Feelings, the story of a critical speed bump in her marriage to Don (Tobias Menzies), ably earns that label.
Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, the second collaboration between Louis-Dreyfus and writer/director Nicole Holofcener (following 2013’s Enough Said) is a tale of honesty, deception and communication breakdowns that proves to be an ideal showcase for its lead—even if its light comedy is a bit too slight.
Out to dinner for their anniversary, Beth and Don exchange gifts that they tell each other they love. Their enthusiasm, however, isn’t completely genuine. Those white lies are of a trivial sort, and no different from the many other times throughout the day that they refrain from saying exactly what they think.