'You Hurt My Feelings' is a terrible title for this or any movie. And I wish that was all I had to complain about. But it's not. It's the film, specifically the writing, that left me cold.
Here's the theme. We all tell little lies to people so that they're not discouraged about themselves. Their painting is not as good as you tell them. Their novel. Their performance. That's it. That's what the film's about. And if you're saying, That's not enough to hang 90 minutes on, I'd say, You're right. This film has no center, no stakes, nothing for anyone to care about. The acting? It's as though the cast knows the truth of the previous statement.
The story. A husband tells his wife (Dreyfus) her novel's great but she then overhears him saying just the opposite. Think of 'I Love Lucy's' Lucy Ricardo overhearing husband Ricky telling Fred Mertz a secret that Lucy misconstrues. It's a TV sit-com for goodness sake. But there's more. Another wife tells her husband his acting's good, but she knows that it's not. A son is under the impression that he's as exceptional as his parents told him he was. A shrink who does a bad job is not confronted by his patients. And on, and on, and on.
And if you're saying that it's an entertaining slice of life, I ask you, Entertaining? Entertaining? Tell me where. And when? And who? And I'll bet anything that you can't. Even if you, like the characters in the film, don't want to hurt the film-maker's feelings.
Here's the theme. We all tell little lies to people so that they're not discouraged about themselves. Their painting is not as good as you tell them. Their novel. Their performance. That's it. That's what the film's about. And if you're saying, That's not enough to hang 90 minutes on, I'd say, You're right. This film has no center, no stakes, nothing for anyone to care about. The acting? It's as though the cast knows the truth of the previous statement.
The story. A husband tells his wife (Dreyfus) her novel's great but she then overhears him saying just the opposite. Think of 'I Love Lucy's' Lucy Ricardo overhearing husband Ricky telling Fred Mertz a secret that Lucy misconstrues. It's a TV sit-com for goodness sake. But there's more. Another wife tells her husband his acting's good, but she knows that it's not. A son is under the impression that he's as exceptional as his parents told him he was. A shrink who does a bad job is not confronted by his patients. And on, and on, and on.
And if you're saying that it's an entertaining slice of life, I ask you, Entertaining? Entertaining? Tell me where. And when? And who? And I'll bet anything that you can't. Even if you, like the characters in the film, don't want to hurt the film-maker's feelings.