Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 14 February

You Hurt My Feelings (Holofcener, 2023)

For Valentine's Day, a film about love that is on the brink. Could go either way. Touch and go.

Beth (Julia-Louis Dreyfuss) and Don (Tobias Menzies) are a successful New York couple, married long enough to have a 23-year-old son. She is a writer and creative writing teacher, he is a therapist.

Their best friends are her sister Sarah (Micaela Watkins), an interior designer, and her husband Mark (Aryan Moayed), an actor.

One day, their happy (relatively uninvestigated) marriage is threatened by Beth’s chance over-hearing of a conversation between Don and Mark. Don confesses that he doesn’t like her latest book. He’s read every draft and continues to be generically encouraging but he really doesn’t get it.

This shakes Beth to the very core of her being. He has lied to her. Can she ever trust him again?

But we all tell little white lies to each other all the time. To be encouraging. To not be discouraging. To get through the day without a difficult conversation. For the best of reasons, in other words.

But can they get through this?

I’m at the age where the most romantic thing in the world is two grown-ups working through their differences on a couch late at night and, as a result, remembering why they loved that person in the first place.

Like so many of Holofcener’s films, it’s actually a sweet comedy with dramatic overtones, and a subtle context of New York social commentary. Delightfully observed, witty and thoughtful, these characters will seem familiar to you, except that, because they are New Yorkers, they are dialled up to 11.

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Where to watch You Hurt My Feelings