Julia Louis-Dreyfus

A few last remarks on "You Hurt My Feelings"....

When Julia Louis-Dreyfus imagined her career, she just thought she would be an actor. Comedy was not "the plan." It came to pass that all her roles were funny, because "funny" seemed to be what she could do. It's Nicole Holofcener who has allowed JLD to stretch in a professional way.

(Good comic actors should be offered dramatic roles. Vince Gilligan understands this, i.e., with Odenkirk, Michael McKean, Carol Burnett....Another example is Bridget Everett, in "Somebody Somewhere.")

In the new Holofcener movie, JLD's character writes a novel entitled "The Dark Hallway." This could also be the name of the movie itself; JLD is groping through a dark tunnel, moving from one room to another. She has built herself up after a difficult childhood; her father routinely called her "Shit-for-Brains." Her ballast has been her husband--but her husband secretly dislikes her new work. She has to decide (a) if her husband is different from her father, (b) if her husband's opinion here really matters, (c) if it's possible to understand and forgive a betrayal, i.e., the moment her husband falsely said, "I love this book."

At one point, recalling her childhood, the JLD character says, "You don't move past some things. You carry the memory with you, and you do the best you can."

That's true of kids, but it's also true in a marriage. JLD moves from puking-on-the-street to feeling reasonably happy at a book launch. But a sense of ambivalence still lingers. JLD clearly resents a colleague, whose memoir, "The Gloomy Hour," seems to be winning unjustly effusive praise. And yet at least, in Act Three, JLD can stand up straight and manage a conversation.

This is an elegant and quirky story, with hidden depths. It's worth a second screening.

P.S. Another team that understood the value of "funny people" in dramatic roles: the group behind "Damages." Think of Ted Danson, Lily Tomlin, John Goodman, and Martin Short, in their varied storylines.

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