You Hurt My Feelings
The lies we tell each other.
When is it okay to lie? Which is preferable, steadfast support of someone you love or brutal honesty? This is the central question in the recently released dramedy, “You Hurt My Feelings,” starring Julia Louis Dreyfus. The story line. A long time married couple faces existential crisis when, Beth, a writer, played by Dreyfus, overhears her husband confiding that he does not like her most recent manuscript that she is shopping for publishing. Upon overhearing this confession, Beth questions not just her husband’s honesty, but her talent, her marriage and her self worth. The film, which appears light on the surface, touches upon the subtexts in our lives through judicious dialogue that is both humorous and thought provoking.
Beth teaches creative writing at the New School, to a group of, if not talent laden, wide eyed youth who wish to write. She has already published a moderately successful memoir, and is now shopping her most recent work of fiction. Beth’s contributions to her group discussions with her students, offer humility to their writing ideas contrasting her internal condescension versus support with an understated but remarkable humor. Yes, it’s Seinfeld situational satire, but the unforgettable series worked because it works. One student remarks that he would like to, “Write about prison.” Beth asks what about prison he would like to write about and he responds, “jail.” Beth can only nod her head in deadpan agreement, perhaps wondering if he has hit upon some metaphysical truth in likening the two synonyms, while simultaneously questioning his verbal SAT score.
Enter Tobias Menzies as Don, Beth’s psychologist husband. Tobias plays Don with such tender compassion, you cannot help but wanting to cradle the deeply etched laugh lines that frame his thoughtful jawline. He is both masculine and soft, wrapped up in adoring partner to Beth. Don finds himself in his own 50 something self pilgrimage into the meaning of his livelihood, as he confuses the family members of his patients, and watches more than he participates with the listlessness of a tired therapist. He is finding it harder to lead his flock to enlightenment when they lack the consciousness to be led. He watches one couple bicker with unchecked venom, another young patient, unwilling or unable to look at the real cause for his family guilt, and starts to question his own worth in his professional restraint from saying what is really on his mind.
The movie paints the depth of familial sublimation with simple brushstrokes. Having lunch with their mother, the two sisters, Beth and Sarah, played by Michaela Watkins, portrays the nuance of the mother daughter relationship — the stilted conversation, overshadowed by jealousy, expectation but always glazed in love. Beth tells her mother that her potato salad is delicious, while mom offers her to take it home. When Beth searches for a Tupperware (of which her mother has an entire cabinet full), Beth’s mother tells her to wrap it in tin foil, revealing a miserliness and probably long, not so restrained need for control and lack of wastefulness. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The scene is understated but gets the point across. Beth chooses not to delve into the true underpinnings, refuses the potato salad and calls lunch a wrap.
The pivotal scene comes while Don and Mark, Beth’s brother in law, are shopping for socks in Patagonia. Nothing like male bonding over outdoor wear, thank you so much, director Nicole Holofcener, for the intimacy between men, not shared over shots and not diluted in ego. The men trade secrets just as their wives might do and perhaps, with more authenticity. It is in this moment, Beth, who decides to surprise her husband, overhears Don tell Mark that he does not like Beth’s new book. He does not sugar coat it. He repeats it, emphasizes it and drives it home with target practice like clarity. There is no way to wiggle out of this, except with a resounding mia culpe.
After Beth hears her husband, her doubts cascade like a rock slide. One after the other, her feelings take over, from whether her husband has concealed more, whether the verbal abuse suffered by her father (who called her “shit for brains”) is actually true, and whether she should simply burn her hard work and start over, or, worse, stop writing altogether.
How quickly we see Beth free fall into self doubt. How fragile our self worth can be when we perceive that we have been deceived. The wounds that are no longer visible, bleed quickly through the skin reminding us of their ugliness, their permanence, and their eternal menace.
The skill of the film is how each situation hints, though does not scream, the same theme. Whether its Beth’s designer sister’s Sisyphusian pursuit of the perfect mounted light for a wealthy client, or the conversation of a random couple at a bar when Beth probes them if they admire each other’s work (prompting an argument between spouses from perhaps long held but unsaid opinions). The theme being that we all crave approval and yes, we do tell daily lies to one another. Not the kind of lies meant to deceive but the kind born of love, out of our desire to love without tolls. The movie poses the question of whether love must always be honest. At what point does the desire for approval, to give it and receive it just lead to a failure to communicate? Where should we draw the line?
Beth’s son, Elliot, an aspiring playwright, begs his mother to just read his script before judging it. That she drop the motherly role of unconditional support, and that to really do him a service, just be truthful. Finally, Beth and Don come to terms. They admit that they have gifted each other a marriage full of unwanted v neck sweaters and leaf earrings. That they can love each other without always loving what they do, and that walking the line between white lies and support is not easy. You hurt my feelings is a deeper than meets the eye discourse on what we tell each other, what we conceal, and the effect this has on our relationships.
