YOU HURT MY FEELINGS

Name: YOU HURT MY FEELINGS
Item: YOU HURT MY FEELINGS
Author: Gaby Gaduh

"Gentle Comedy Drama About Telling ‘White lies’"

Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

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Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS offers a gentle look at the white lies people tell their loved ones to avoid hurting their feelings. Beth and Don have been married about 30 years. Their adult son is in his mid-twenties and is going through a crisis of what to do with his life while working in a marijuana dispensary. Beth, a writing teacher, overhears Don telling someone her first novel about to be published isn’t very good. Meanwhile, Don begins to have doubts about his gentle approach as a therapist.

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS is slow in building its plot and has a muted tone and an annoying score that alternates between the same few notes on a piano and a guitar. That said, it gets funnier and more dramatic as it goes along. The movie is like a Woody Allen movie, except in this case a lifelong marriage is lovingly portrayed, and the characters end up doing the right thing. YOU HURT MY FEELINGS has no lewd behavior, but MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for lots of strong foul language and some marijuana references.

Content:

(BB, C, LLL, V, A, DD, M): Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements Worldview: Strong pro-marriage worldview, with redemptive scenes of forgiveness, where a very long, positive marriage is at the center of the movie, several lead characters care deeply about each other’s feelings to the point of telling white lies to spare hurt feelings, the characters all admit the lies and are forgiven by each other, and people do the right thing in the end

Foul Language:

About 44 obscenities (about half are “f” words), one Jesus profanity, and here light profanities

Violence:

Two men hold guns while committing a quick robbery of a restaurant cash register, bit no one’s hurt, no gunshots occur, there’s no blood, and the robbers just wave their guns for literally a few seconds

Sex:

No sex

Nudity:

No nudity Alcohol: A couple casually drinks wine together in one scene

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No tobacco smoking, but the main couple’s adult son works in a marijuana store, he and his mother discuss the fact that she smokes marijuana, and she comes in to buy some marijuana from him in another scene; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

In humorous therapy scenes, several couples bicker humorously, and the frustrated therapist finally yells at one couple to just get divorced since they’ve been coming to see him for many years with no results, plus there’s an attempted robbery, and several characters lie to each other to avoid hurting each other’s feelings, but this is all revealed and they eventually forgive each other.

More Detail:

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS is the latest in a string of witty dramedies about neurotic New Yorkers by Writer-Director Nicole Holofcener. It offers a gentle look at the white lies just about anyone tells their loved ones and friends to avoid hurting each other’s feelings. While the story moves very slowly in parts, the movie gets funnier and more dramatically powerful as viewers become more deeply involved with the characters and the story winds up with a series of very positive conclusions. The movie avoids inserting any lewd content, but it has lots of strong foul language and some marijuana references because the son of the lead couple works for a marijuana dispensary.

The movie revolves around the marriage of Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Don (Tobias Menzies), who have been married around 30 years. They are the parents of a son in his mid-twenties who’s going through a crisis of what to do with his life and works in a marijuana dispensary.

Beth is a writing teacher for adults who has published a memoir in the past and has just finished her first novel after lots of self-doubt. Don has assured her through his reading of 20 drafts that it’s great. However, Beth stumbles across Don talking to his best friend in a store and accidentally overhears him saying he actually doesn’t think her novel is but is afraid to tell her because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings.

Beth is devastated and starts wondering how many other lies he’s told her over their decades together. She starts giving him the cold shoulder comically, which only adds to Don’s own personal crisis. The fact that he’s so bored with his therapy clients that he can’t even tell them apart anymore. Also, one bickering couple wants their money back – all of it, which totals more than $30,000 spent across a decade.

Don has always kept his mouth shut about his real feelings toward his clients, merely giving gentle guidance to get them to speak and decide things on their own. However, now that his back is to the wall at home and in the office, he’s decided to start speaking his mind, to funny effect.

Can Beth regain her trust in Don and trust her own feelings about her novel? Can Don manage to fight back against the couple demanding their money back? Will his new approach of telling clients just how he feels lead to success or failure?

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS is slow in building its plot and has a muted tone throughout much of its running time. It also has an annoying score that alternates between the same few notes on a piano and the same few notes on a guitar. This might prove to be too little to entertain some viewers used to hyped-up action and raucous laughter. However, the movie has plenty to reward more thoughtful audiences.

Think of the movie as a classic Woody Allen comedy like HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, except the difference here is that a lifelong marriage is lovingly portrayed, and the characters all end up doing the right thing. Basically, if you liked Woody’s best-known movies but wish the characters didn’t rationalize immoral behavior like adulterous or premarital affairs, YOU HURT MY FEELINGS may be a good movie for you.

However, avoid the movie if you don’t like gently paced movies rooted in dialogue rather than action. Finally, YOUR HURT MY FEELINGS has no lewd behavior, but it has lots of strong foul language and some marijuana references because the adult son works at a pot dispensary. This objectionable content warrants extreme caution.