Welcome to Rearview Mirror, a monthly column in which I re-view and then re-review a movie I have already seen under the new (and improved?) critical lens of 2023. I’m so happy you’re here.
Enough Said was supposed to be the return of the adult romantic comedy. Nicole Holofcener’s well-received story of a divorced woman falling for her new friend’s ex is now best remembered as the final film of the late James Gandolfini (it’s not, actually—he was in some crime drama that came out in 2014, but who cares [editor’s note: that crime drama is The Drop, and my dad absolutely cares. I would venture to guess that yours probably does too.]), and is less remembered as (but is still notable for) being the true beginning of Tavi Gevinson’s acting career.
Here’s what I remember from seeing it 10 years ago: James Gandolfini does something weird with guacamole that shows that he’s not actually committed to losing weight; he keeps his shirt on during sex, but the sex is good; a housekeeper rearranges kitchen utensils and it’s annoying in a rich-people-problem kind of way; Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a massage therapist whose clients are kind of entitled; end of list. I remember liking it, but not feeling a need to revisit it.
I also remember that when I was in college in New York, there was a popular off-off-broadway show performed by the experimental theater group the Neo-Futurists called “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes),” and the cool thing to do on a weekend was see it, as many times as you wanted, because it was always different, or something. I never went, but a guy in my improv group did (I am exactly who you think I am) and reported back that when he saw the show, members of the cast picked short monologues from, I think, a clothesline, and one of the monologues was “Every Line Said by a Person of Color in the Movie Enough Said” (I’m paraphrasing the title, as I don’t remember his exact words). So for a little less than 10 years, I’ve felt slightly uncomfortable about the movie, vaguely aware that it was maybe a little racist and that, even worse, I had not noticed this at all when I watched it.
While girl learns to respect boy’s eccentricities, boy never recognizes that maybe his flaws aren’t a matter of taste, but manners.
With all that in mind, I went back in, and here’s what I found: I was basically right in my recollection. There’s a thing about guacamole and weight, though it’s more like a thing about guacamole and onions, and another thing about weight. Actually, a lot about weight and body image, which I get presents a unique complication in middle age, but the movie does that thing TV shows sometimes do where it asks us to believe that two actor-level good-looking people are not both good-looking. Julia Louis-Dreyfus bemoans not being able to pull off a dress Amy Landecker is wearing. It’s not played like she’s insecure; we’re really supposed to believe JLD isn’t every bit as hot as Amy Landecker. Huh? There’s a running gag with a maid who has a kind of racist accent, calling her employers “meester” and “meesus,” but I’m not sure it’s monologue-worthy offensive. They have sex in the dark, not in shirts, and yeah, she’s a massage therapist.
What stood out to me this time was how awful the characters are in that way that only rich white people in indie dramedies can be. All they do is whine and nit-pick. The daughters are spoiled and the parents are smothering. Toni Collette is too busy to clean her own house because she’s always rearranging the furniture inside of it—“where things should go” is her entire identity. She and her husband (Ben Falcone) bicker, but have no actual problems, because in this movie, being divorced is hard, but so is being married.
Catherine Keener, the poet Louis-Dreyfus develops sort of a lifestyle crush on, isn’t even interesting, she just has nice stuff. She’s friends with Joni Mitchell and her daughter is played by Eve Hewson, who is Bono’s actual daughter, so I get it, but still. Of course her bitching about her ex (Gandolfini) poisons his relationship with Louis-Dreyfus, but then again, she was trying to fix him from the moment she met him, suggesting little self-care adjustments at the restaurant where they have their first date.
His self-identified problem is being a slob, but it’s not—it’s a lack of consideration for others. He talks loudly during movies, wears sweatpants to brunch, and takes the only chair in his backyard, leaving the woman he’s on a date with to lounge against concrete steps. And while girl learns to respect boy’s eccentricities, boy never recognizes that maybe his flaws aren’t a matter of taste, but manners. Then again, he’s the nice one.
The movie’s sort of sour on people overall, but it ends on a hopeful note in its suggestion that maybe, if we all just learned to live with each other’s annoying qualities, we’d be better off.
There’s a suggestion that threesomes are a widespread and urgent problem among teens that shocks even the cool, sex-positive parents who hate aging so much that they’re infantilizing their kids instead of accepting that they will eventually move away. The movie’s sort of sour on people overall, but it ends on a hopeful note in its suggestion that maybe, if we all just learned to live with each other’s annoying qualities, we’d be better off. Except Keener, who doesn’t have any friends because she’s such a pill, which is fair
Louis-Dreyfus is typically perfect at playing awkward and uncomfortable moments (I may have actually cringed once or twice), and it’s a must-watch for Sopranos fans who want to see the softer side of Gandolfini (don’t give me all that about Tony having a softer side; I mean an actual soft character who isn’t a murderer). It’s well-observed and strangely timeless—no outdated political remarks or “only before COVID!” moments. Will it make you happy the way rom-coms do? Not a lot, no. But if you snip at your spouse and consider yourself too sophisticated for Everybody Loves Raymond, this is the movie for you.
Seriously though, don’t talk in movies, and don’t nag people about their weight. So rude. FL
