You Hurt My Feelings

 

Writer/director Nicole Holofcener

Holofcener with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS             C                                                                                    USA  (93 mi)  2023  d: Nicole Holofcener

The whole world is falling apart, and this is what’s consuming you?                                          —Don (Tobias Menzies)

In an era where it’s often hard to distinguish an actual movie from television, as they’ve become one and the same, this leans decisively towards the world of television, never once actually feeling like a movie, more like a sitcom, as there’s nothing cinematic about it and instead seems designed to be seen on a small screen instead of a theater, which does not enhance the viewing experience.  From the maker of Enough Said (2013), starring Seinfeld’s own Julia Louis-Dreyfus and The Soprano’s star James Gandolfini in his final film role, it does not appear that the passage of time has done anything to improve the abilities of this director, though in her films dating struggles have now given way to parenting problems, yet there’s simply nothing imaginative about the story or the way it’s presented, where this just feels like something written exclusively for television, as it’s only mildly entertaining and largely forgettable.  Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023, the premise of the film happens to be that writers tend to be extremely insecure, where the least little criticism can send them into an emotional tailspin that sends them over the edge, questioning their talent and self-worth, always seeking personal validation, revealing our own deeply embedded insecurities in how much we value the approval of others.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus is Beth, a writer who is struggling to follow up on her last effort, which was a somewhat successful memoir about the verbal abuse she received from her father, now delving into the world of fiction with her first novel, which feels much more open-ended, like a world that’s harder to crack, and it’s causing her all kinds of anxiety and self-doubt.  Beth is also a creative writing instructor, leading a small class of would-be writers, encouraging them to read fragments of their work, exploring ideas and materials, where her role is offering creative support, even after she hilariously discovers they have never read her work.  Her husband Don (Tobias Menzies), on the other hand, is a psychotherapist, like Nanni Moretti in The Son's Room (La stanza del figlio) (2001), but finds himself alienated from his clients, whose problems interest him less and less, discovering he is less engaged, where he actually mixes up the personal histories of his patients.  Together, however, they have that happy marriage, part of New York’s middle class in Manhattan, where the city itself is a character that weaves in and out of the storyline.  Raised on the Upper West Side, Holofcener grew up as an extra on the sets of Woody Allen’s TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969) and SLEEPER (1973) before working as a production assistant for A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) and assistant editor on Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), while her mother Carol Joffe was Allen’s frequent set decorator, and her stepfather Charles H. Joffe was the executive producer for fifty years of Allen’s films, placing her smack dab in the middle of a burgeoning New York City arts scene, where she was taught by none other than Martin Scorsese at Columbia University’s film school.  Much of Holofcener’s work has a realistic yet satiric style, most of it shot on location, where she seems to have built a career around superfluous characters and stunted emotional growth, creating a comedy of manners that examines the lives of the upper middle bourgeoisie, often intellectual, and from a female perspective, making seven features, though most of her work has come in television. 

While Holofcener likes to complain that nobody has seen her films, with critics suggesting that not much happens in her films, which may be filled with “little daily dramas,” or what Beth describes as her “little narcissistic world,” and while plot may not be her strong suit, much more focus is spent on character and dialogue.  Still, much like the central character in this film, she may have insecurities about her work, where the things people say matter, though in the bigger picture she may overlook much of the criticism, but when it comes from her inner circle, that makes all the difference.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the most successful comedic actresses in television history, bringing a silliness, a quirkiness, and most of all an intelligence when it comes to her screen roles, blending emotional authenticity with a heavy dose of irreverence, with Holofcener writing the part with her in mind.  While Beth is comfortable visiting bookstores, she has a habit of trying to move the location of her books into a more prominent position, offering greater accessibility to the public, which is viewed as small-minded and petty, thinking exclusively of herself, showing little regard for the other authors.  And though she has painfully been going through the rewrites on her novel, she is disappointed to learn that her publisher believes it is still in need of many more rewrites before it’s ready for publishing, immediately thinking of herself as a failure, second guessing her every move.  Her 23-year old son Eliot (Owen Teague) is a budding playwright, feeling the pressure of having a writer for a mother, unable to realize his own writing ambitions, so he works in a low-key job as a store clerk in a cannabis store, which causes his mother endless worry, as it attracts a fringe element of lowlifes and derelicts, where the lone security guard looks asleep half the time.  Beth’s sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) is an interior designer, but faces constant rejection from demanding upscale clients, spending her days scouring the Upper West and East sides searching for just the right products, where the callousness of her clients matches the tastelessness of their choices.  Her husband Mark (Arian Moayed) is a budding actor who never seems to find work, always on the verge of professional failure, but he hangs around the fringes of the industry hoping something falls his way.  What seems apparent, however, is that everyone is suffocating from their own mediocrity.  A common thread is watching a cyclical rotation of Don’s patients, none of whom seem to get any better, perhaps best represented by real-life married couple Amber Tamblyn and David Cross in the first time they’ve appeared in a film together, who hold little love for each other, yet are inseparable, as they can’t live without complaining about their partners.  A familiar refrain that runs through this picture is an utter dissatisfaction with their work, which has a way of feeling existentially soul-crushing, mirroring the anxieties they feel about growing older, as they’re not as young and cute as they used to be, where small satisfactions loom larger, yet they can’t shake the fear that impending mortality lies around every corner.  

What really sets the wheels in motion, however, is Beth accidentally overhearing a discussion between Don and Mark, where her husband honestly confesses he really didn’t like the latest work she’s written, which hits her like a ton of bricks, as he’s been her staunchest supporter.  They’re the kind of married couple that finishes each other’s sentences, sharing one another’s food, even licking from the same ice cream cone, which drives their son nuts, finding it disgusting.  Considering the reliability of the source, feeling utterly betrayed, she falls into a depression, turning a cold shoulder, avoiding him like the plague, but refuses to share what’s on her mind, instead allowing it fester, growing passive-aggressive, where she just grows angrier and more indignant.  Her entire relationship is shaken, not knowing who to trust anymore, as the foundation of their marriage has suddenly been exposed as a lie, losing all sense of equilibrium.  None of the characters are fully developed, feeling more like caricatures, yet they continue to utter smart-assed remarks for comic value, feeling very hit or miss, where the only one in the entire film that feels real is Beth’s aging mother Georgia, played by the great Jeannie Berlin, daughter of Elaine May and so powerful in Kenneth Lonergan’s 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #2 Margaret, as her dialogue never feels forced or couched in comedy, sounding very much like a proud Jewish mother who wants the best for her children, even as they’ve grown into fledgling adults, still filled with the same insecurities and deficiencies they had in childhood, but they’ve also developed much greater intelligence and talent.  She’s insistent that Beth’s publisher hasn’t done a good job marketing her book, urging her to seek out another, convinced that her daughter is a great writer.  And she could easily be, but you’d never know it, as none of the characters are internalized or self-reflective, feeling very surface level, where the film is a series of incidents that only exacerbate the differences and commonalities between us, where the things that drive us apart also bring us together, where there’s a thin line between love and hate.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the center of the picture, with everything revolving around her, and, as always, she’s commercially appealing, observant of those around her, like a stand-in for the director, where this single incident has made her question everything in their relationship, dredging up the past, where suddenly everything is seen in a new and different light.  Everyone feels the need to be valued, in all aspects of our existence, where doubt, or silence, upsets our feelings.  A film about trust, lies, and the things we say to the people we love most, where encouragement is not always supported by the truth, oftentimes hiding our true feelings with little white lies, yet offering our full support, irrespective of how we feel, is what matters most, as we want the best out of those closest to us.  None of this is revelatory or earth-shaking, or particularly profound, but it’s ensconced in a feel-good air of white-privileged, middle class contentment.

Montana Story

 

Scott McGehee

David Siegel

MONTANA STORY             B                                                                                                        USA  (114 mi)  2021  ‘Scope  d: Scott McGehee and David Siegel

Your father is a man whose past is complete now. Nothing will be added to his story. He is the sum of his days.                                                                                                                        —Ace (Gilbert Owuor)

Nestled between two mountain ranges, the film was shot during the heart of the pandemic in the panoramic expanse of Paradise Valley in Montana, about as far away from Covid lockdowns as possible, featuring breathtaking scenery, made by filmmaking partners Scott McGehee and David Seigel after a nine year break from directing, written along with Mike Spreter, weaving a heartbreaking yet intimate story about toxic masculinity and family secrets, something of a lighter version of Jane Campion’s epic historical western 2021 #1 Film of the Year The Power of the Dog, perhaps more representative of tender westerns like Andrew Haigh’s Lean On Pete (2017) and Chloé Zhao’s 2018 Top Ten Film List #1 The Rider (2017).  While there are long, quiet stretches that simply linger on the majestic grandeur of the landscape, this revisionist account is a little too pat in terms of accentuating a political correctness, making sure Indians and blacks are well represented onscreen, something noticeably missing in western annals, so this is playing to an idealized point of view that may not actually exist in reality.  The sheer magnificence of the setting, however, is beautifully captured on 35mm by cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, the man behind the camera in David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water (2016), yet there’s also a surprising claustrophobia to much of this, as Wade (Rob Story), the patriarchal rancher at the center of the family narrative, has suffered a stroke and fallen into a permanent coma with no recovery likely, existing on life support, yet his dying presence sprawled out in the ground-floor study, his face hidden by an oxygen mask, generates what little action there is, still a ghostly force to be reckoned with, as his life comes into play through revelations from other characters without ever resorting to flashbacks.  His son Cal, Owen Teague, who also makes an appearance in the Michael Morris film To Leslie (2022), takes it upon himself to set his father’s affairs in order, carrying a heavy burden, assisted by a round-the-clock live-in nurse known as Ace (Gilbert Owuor), a conveniently shortened nickname for a Kenyan immigrant whose name is too difficult to pronounce, and the family’s long-time Indian housekeeper Valentina (Kimberly Guerrero).  The sudden, unexpected arrival of Cal’s older sister Erin (Haley Lu Richardson), who dropped out of sight 7 years ago and has been incommunicado ever since, changes the entire rhythm of the film, as she’s blunt, emotionally agitated, and a bit flustered, immediately regretting her decision to be there, as she runs in, realizes the extent of her father’s incapacity, and runs out again in this whirlwind appearance of now you see me, now you don’t.  What changes her mind is a 25-year old horse in the barn named Mr. T, with both siblings still retaining a strong emotional attachment, yet Cal has arranged for the horse to be “put down,” which really aggravates Erin, finding this completely disturbing, and can’t rest at the thought of it, coming up with a harebrained scheme to take Mr. T back to New York with her, pointing out that she lives in Hudson Valley in “upstate” New York, as if that makes all the difference.  Early on the film feels rushed and forced, cramming expository information to familiarize viewers with the storyline, but once Erin changes her mind on an abrupt departure and decides to stay, the pace of the film slows, finally allowing the characters to breathe and the gravity of the overall landscape to be felt.

In this slow-paced, character-driven film, which takes its time in patiently rolling out the nature of the underlying dynamic, we learn that Erin’s mother Libby died during childbirth, while Cal’s mother Connie perished in a car crash two years ago, but as children the two siblings were inseparable.  The secondary characters are all people of color, and while that might seem improbable, the Indian presence in Montana has been a fixture for centuries, long before the Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of America, and Lewis and Clark made their expedition west on their way to the sea, with 7 Indian reservations or tribal territories currently spread throughout the state, with an additional 35% of the Indian population residing in communities outside these areas.  Valentina’s cheerful son Joey (Asivak Koostachin) is a childhood friend of the family, and a welcome presence, while they later venture onto tribal lands in their own strange misadventure.  The land surrounding the property is so vast that no other neighbors can be seen, instead a magnificent vista of the nearby mountains offers a spectacular view, yet there is no thought to saving the ranch, as medical expenditures have evaporated their father’s wealth, now in the grips of bankruptcy, where they are required to sell off any remaining assets just to cover the expenses.  Cal is dumbstruck by his sister’s return, having previously lost all contact with her, only to discover Valentina has been secretly staying in touch, having given her promise not to tell anyone, leaving an emotional riff, as Cal feels blindsided, MONTANA STORY | One More Time | Bleecker Street YouTube (1:12).  We also learn of their father’s horrific abuse, where the fear he once commanded is a striking contrast to his current shrunken and pathetic state, with both children still reeling from the emotional damage he inflicted upon each of them, as the truth is slowly revealed in increments, playing out in real time, not really knowing anything in advance, partially told in a quiet soliloquy by Cal to Ace while watching over the lifeless form of his father, suggesting he needs to know about the man he’s caring for, still at a loss to feel any attachment to this man.  But the biggest surprise may be Haley Lu Richardson, usually heartwarming and bubbly, with such a pronounced presence in Kogonada’s 2017 Top Ten List #5 Columbus and After Yang (2021), yet here she’s a much darker character, cold and abrupt, to the point of being aloof and harshly disrespectful, where you wonder if she’s inherited some of her father’s traits.  Wade was a high-powered attorney pretending to be a cowboy, protecting the interests of the mining industry in covering up their toxic pollution, dispensing an Old Testament-style wrath on Erin as a teenager after learning she wrote an article in her school paper exposing the corruption of the industry, nearly beating her to death in a deplorable assault of child abuse, and later killed her horse out of spite, witnessed by a terrified 15-year old Cal, an incident that left both traumatized, with Erin running away from home afterwards, where certainly one overriding theme is that it takes plenty of time for festering wounds to even begin to heal.  

After a search on Craigslist, Erin heads to the Blackfeet Reservation along with Cal to purchase a used truck and trailer to haul Mr. T to New York, where they meet with the very congenial Mukki (Eugene Brave Rock), immediately exhibiting a slower pace of life, without the stress of all the medical issues, as he grows curious why a Montana horse would head to New York.  He finds this ironic as he’s a transplanted New York Mohican Indian whose people fled first to the midwest and then Montana to avoid recurring incidents of violence associated with western expansion, yet his relaxed demeanor suggests he’s happily found a home.  The beat-up truck he’s selling, on the other hand, has issues that he’s quickly forced to fix, but she’s able to drive it away, only to break down along the highway on the road back to the ranch.  As they wait for roadside assistance, they take a side trip to an expansive open-pit copper mine, now covered by a toxic lake over a mile long filled with heavy metals from old underground mine shafts, a man-made catastrophe responsible for killing thousands of birds and other wildlife from the sulphuric acids they used, which eventually forced them to shut down, a looming eyesore on the endless landscape in the middle of nowhere, sarcastically described by Erin as “Just another crime scene out in the ol’ West,” before eerily comparing it to the nine circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, where the lowest circle is reserved for “betrayers of special relationships.”  While the quietly restrained music by Kevin Morby fits the typical indie fare, overall the choice of musical selections disappoints, not nearly as inspiring as Max Walker-Silverman’s 2022 Top Ten List #8 A Love Song, for instance, though it does include a classic country song like Emmylou Harris & Willie Nelson - One Paper Kid - YouTube (3:00).  Joey arrives in his tow truck, happily helping out Erin, as it appears he has a soft spot for her.  We learn that Cal has made a life for himself in Cheyenne as a civil engineer, as he enjoys shaping the urban landscape, while Erin works as a trained farm-to-table cook in a restaurant that uses every part of the animal, from head to tail.  She decides to put her talents to use that night by cooking a gourmet chicken dinner, making a beeline to the hen house to pick out a prize chicken and slaughtering it right there in the yard, much to Cal’s surprise, though her decisive behavior lends a moment of levity, as she’s so thoroughly purposeful, revealing a side of Haley Lu Richardson we just haven’t seen.  They sit down with Ace for an elegant dinner together, coming near the holidays, adding wine for a festive occasion, their spirits apparently revived, actually feeling like a family again.  But a dramatic storm ensues, cutting off all power, jeopardizing the life support system, with their father suffering a heart attack, requiring emergency treatment from Ace, who enlists Erin to help with the manual breathing device, which clearly leaves her devastated, as she can’t imagine “helping” this man, with Cal running out into the barn to search for an emergency generator, with the power restored by the time he returns, but Erin is overcome with emotions, as the sins of the past force their way back into the present, becoming a punishing day of reckoning, each still carrying their own nightmarish recollections.  As the storm subsides, however, a new era opens up, and with it comes its own dark mysteries as their father passes in the night, perhaps a blessing in disguise, as the pain he caused had reached a breaking point, needing a pressure valve for release, suggesting generational change can never occur until the old ways are dispelled, offering a poignant commentary on how the imprint of violence and generational trauma are left not just on people and families, but an entire region.  Yet the enduring brilliance of this poetically understated film is not just some reconciled family resolution, but a deeper underlying connection that returns Mr. T to his rightful homeland, seen once again running free with a herd of other horses as Joey and Mukki gladly watch it all unravel in a beautifully realized sequence on tribal lands.