‘You Hurt My Feelings’ review: Can a marriage survive an overheard insult? Julia Louis-Dreyfus answers that in a deft new comedy

How much truth can a marriage withstand? That question provides the source of all the feelings in “You Hurt My Feelings,” the latest — a comedy of insecurity, buoyed by a Sunday kind of love, as the old song says — from writer-director Nicole Holofcener.

It’s the second collaboration between Holofcener and the peerless Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who (news flash) has a light-fingered wizard’s touch with every conceivable kind of comedy, including near-tragedy. The mode here favors subtlety and a kind of wry indirection. The story hinges on the trope of the wince-worthy overheard insult, a source of accidental humiliation Holofcener deployed in her first feature, “Walking and Talking” (1996).

In that earlier film, the boyfriend of the Catherine Keener character happens upon an answering machine message not meant for his ears, referring to “the ugly guy,” i.e., him. “You Hurt My Feelings” hinges on the moment when Beth, a married novelist and writing professor played by Louis-Dreyfus, overhears her ordinarily supportive husband Don, played by Tobias Menzies of “The Crown,” confessing to his brother-in-law that he doesn’t really like his wife’s new book. At all.

Mortified, Beth cannot un-hear that information. A tricky marital recovery awaits her and her therapist husband Don. Other key characters in Holofcener’s tale of the evasions and white lies peppering this marriage, and a few hundred million more, include Beth’s sister (Michaela Watkins, a minimalist comic genius); her actor husband (Arian Moayed, equally sharp-witted, even when his character is halfway up his own narcissism); Beth’s mother (Jeannie Berlin, perfect, though the role’s a little narrow); and some recurring patients of Don’s, notably the tetchy married couple played by David Cross and Amber Tamblyn. Sample rejoinder in one of their therapy sessions: “Will you shut up and keep talking?”

There’s just enough of a through-line in “You Hurt My Feelings” to hold the falling apart together. Louis-Dreyfus’ unerring comic-dramatic inflections really are the best in the business. Holofcener doesn’t build to the major confrontation scenes in the usual movie ways. Everyone has their reasons for their unease, and their place in the pecking order of things, whether it’s a marriage or the matter of whose book jacket boasts the most gaga quote. (“Perilously close to perfect” screams one such endorsement on a book written by someone other than Beth, to Beth’s chagrin.)

Beth’s last book sold just well enough, i.e., not spectacularly, to give her mother room for needling about why it didn’t sell better. Meantime Don’s starting to wonder if he’s improving his patients’ lives in any appreciable way. He has a diffident counseling style, which isn’t really enough for his regulars. When he overhears one of them muttering “God, what an idiot” on the way out of a session, it’s less of a shock and more of a sobering confirmation of a veteran therapist’s nagging doubts. And, because Holofcener knows what she’s doing, it’s funny first and affecting afterward.

Familiar territory, yes. But there’s a baseline reality and warmth in “You Hurt My Feelings.” It’s low-keyed (to a fault, sometimes) and satisfyingly nuanced in ways Woody Allen and a few other geographically and thematically like-minded filmmakers don’t have much interest in exploring, if they ever did. The sister relationship emerges as no less important than the marriage; it’s as everyday-casual and authentic as this kind of movie can be. Louis-Dreyfus and Watkins stay perfectly in sync even when their characters find themselves momentarily at odds.

Louis-Dreyfus starred with James Gandolfini in a previous Holofcener picture, “Enough Said.” Reviewing that film, I used the phrase “minor but skillfully made,” which strikes me, a decade later, as a mite ungrateful — akin to an overheard insult, albeit a published one. “Minor” is one thing; modestly scaled and carefully attuned is quite another. “You Hurt My Feelings” sorts through small and medium-sized slings, arrows, challenges and emotions, things that hide bigger ones, with all the right performers in place. And that is more major than minor.

———

'YOU HURT MY FEELINGS'

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language)

Running time: 1:33

How to watch: Now in theaters

———