Director: Nicole Holofcener.
Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, Toni Collette, Ben Falcone.
Running time: 93 minutes.
Certificate: 12A.
Synopsis: A divorced masseuse who embarks on a positive relationship with a man learns he’s her new friend’s (and client’s) ex-husband.
Nicole Holofcener, a director whose career has been an even, fertile balance of helming feature films and episodes of a string of television shows, makes a pleasing return to the big screen with ENOUGH SAID, her first cinematic outing since the subtly brilliant PLEASE GIVE in 2010. Though not as contemplative or quietly moving as that portrait of bourgeois angst and privileged guilt (but more expressive than 2006’s shallow FRIENDS WITH MONEY), Holofcener’s latest is nevertheless an amusing and sensitively frank romantic comedy that examines the various emotional and romantic trials faced by a clutch of mid-life Americans.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus – who here transcends a lengthy and successful career as a sitcom mainstay with a rare foray into cinema – plays divorcée Eva, a jobbing masseuse who meets Albert (the late James Gandolfini in one of his final roles), a sweet-natured and similarly divorced man, at a party. The two share an instant chemistry and bond over the mutual dread of their respective daughters’ impending departure for college. What starts as an amiable affection quickly turns into something deeper, as Eva and Albert’s romance blossoms and the two lost souls make an emotional connection each believed was futile in their autumnal years.
A smooth progression from fondness to devotion is scuppered, however, when Eva realises her new-fangled friend and client Marianne (Holofcener regular Catherine Keener) is in fact Albert’s ex-wife, something unwittingly made clear with her profusely negative opinions and tales of their failed marriage. In the awkward position of being privy to insider information about who she is in an outwardly healthy relationship with, Eva struggles with a newfound sense of doubt exacerbated by a daughter whose migration she seems incapable of accepting.
Although abandoning her more critical edges in favour of something altogether more fluffy, lightweight and contemporary, Holofcener here has written and directed a charismatic and capably handled romantic ditty that fully benefits from an adroit softness of touch sustained throughout. As adept as she is in rendering watchable the foibles of middle-aged suburbanites, the director would be found particularly wanting this time around without the combined prowess of Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolfini, who each convey a profoundly touching mixture of sensitivity, humour and humanity in their roles. Particularly so with Dreyfus, an infectiously charming natural comedian who here is a world away from Veep‘s foul-mouthed VP, Selina Meyer, but retains Seinfeld‘s Elaine Benes’ scatty and instantly lovable magnetism.
Outside the focus of the central relationship is where Holofcener’s screenplay tends to suffer, overstressing its preoccupations through inherent narrative contrivances and aimless subplots that offer merely distracting asides. This is seen mainly through Eva’s friend Sarah (Toni Collette, used in the wrong capacity), a psychiatrist tied to a frustrated marriage and a snippy maid with a tendency to place household items away in the wrong places – an ephemeral gag indicative of its place in a wholly different film. Though presided over by an entirely indifferent and useless score, ENOUGH SAID is nevertheless a solid and insightful (if unashamedly predictable and studied) adult comedy with a clear, untarnished message regarding one’s boundless capacity for love.
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