Skip to main content

Louis-Dreyfus: "You Hurt My Feelings"

 Adele once said "the artist of my life is Beyonce." Well, for me the answer is Nicole Holofcener. I think Holofcener is on par with Mike White, and I think she is weirdly undervalued, year after year.


Holofcener made five--actually five--stunning movies with Catherine Keener. These two seem to have parted ways (I can't unearth an explanation), but Holofcener continues to do her spiky, bewitching thing--with Edie Falco ("Steady Habits") and with Mellisa McCarthy ("Forgive Me"). There isn't a single dud in this list of titles.

One theme that fascinates Holofcener is gift-giving. In "Walking and Talking," a couple has a fight about a mole; the fight is really about Anne Heche's controlling behavior. Heche's fiancee pretends to rise above the tension--but he later packs his biopsied mole into a tiny ornamental box, and presents the mole as a "pre-wedding surprise." This awkward moment ("Look, I'm being FUNNY!") is really a display of anger and aggression; a small problem suddenly becomes much, much larger.

In "Please Give," Catheine Keener makes a gift of her soggy, leftover food; she thrusts her paper plate at a disheveled man on the street. "Lady, what are you doing?" says the man, who is clearly pissed. "I'm not begging. I'm here waiting in line for this restaurant. I teach over at NYU." It's almost physically painful to watch this scene, where someone "externalizes" her own inner mess. I think I'm not alone in feeling like I'm watching a documentary about my own life.

Holofcener's newest film has yet another hall-of-fame portrait of "giving"; a married couple meets for an anniversary dinner. The wife once expressed an interest in "leaf earrings," and so the husband has started purchasing a new, awful set of "leaf jewels" every year. The wife chooses a cashmere sweater for her guy--but the sweater is always a V neck, and the husband silently insists that no man should ever wear this particular fashion. ("Why do I need the V? I don't have cleavage.") 

This is, once again, my own life; it was a big victory in my marriage when my husband finally felt comfortable enough to say, "I actually don't like this Jacob Lawrence print that you bought for me."

What is special about Holofcner is that she lives through various awkward moments--but then she takes out her pen. She understands, "Aha, this minute that I'd prefer not to revisit....This minute is actually fertile terrain for a new screenplay." In this way, Holofcener resembles the writer Katherine Heiny, who is also delighted every time one of her own gestures becomes problematic. ("Problematic" is a good word for everyday life, so Heiny has a fair amount to write about.)

There is more to say about Holofcener--but I was just so excited about the V neck. I hope that she has another twenty years of storytelling left (twenty or more).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

The Death of Bergoglio

  It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...
1 comment
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more