Enough Said

I went to see this film for two reasons, because it got great reviews and because of James Gandolfini. Unfortunately, the reviews were wrong. Great performances by Dreyfus and Gandolfini are forced to cohabitate with a terrible, mundane plot. This makes it impossible to feel sympathy for the characters or their lives. It seems as if the characters are purposely depicted in a way as to evoke pity. This is enraging because these characters are not pathetic in the least. I tried really really hard to empathize with the them, but it was impossible. They are just not realistic and therefore impossible to care about.

Julia Louis Dreyfus’ uninteresting character egomaniacally brings on all her own misfortunes. We see her make bad choice after bad choice. It is no wonder that she ruins all her personal relationships. She's an idiot! But Dreyfus’ acting is fantastic. What a paradox!

The most enraging thing is that this film was advertised as a humorous drama. I left the theater post-film, fuming at being misled. I felt I’d had been taken like a sucker into thinking this was some kind of quirky little indie film, something Squid and the Whale-ish (even though I don't like Squid, I like that genre). I would have accepted the film more openly had it at least been a romantic comedy, but Enough Said is a full-on romance. It has some hilarious parts, but they are single handedly the result of Dreyfus’ spectacular performance.

This film snubs us unlucky people by declaring that it is in fact our own fault that are we live screwed up lives. But we unlucky people don't want to be told it's our fault. We like to blame the world for our problems, and we like to see charters on the screen that fall from grace not because they fly to close to the sun, but because the sun explodes and engulfs them in flames.

I can name on one hand the romances stories I like, so perhaps by not being part of this film's target audiences I am negatively biased. Whatever it was the film's producers were trying to evoke in me, they failed at it.

5/10