You can't live in fear of making a mistake.
Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said was good enough to come to a theater that's merely an hour's drive for me (as opposed to the one that's an hour and a half away), so I made it my top priority today. The film stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a masseuse and single mother who makes a couple of important connections -- one professional, the other personal -- at a party she attends with two of her married friends. The professional one is a potential client (professional poet Catherine Keener, now five for five with Holofcener), the personal one is a potential boyfriend (teddy bear James Gandolfini, in one of his last screen roles). What she doesn't realize when she starts seeing both of them -- and hearing Keener gripe about her ex-husband during their sessions -- is that Gandolfini is the ex-husband she's griping about. Even after Dreyfus finds out, though, she keeps her discovery to herself, allowing Keener's digs to subtly alter the way she looks at him as boyfriend material.
As it happens, that's not the only relationship in flux. Since Dreyfus's college-bound daughter (Tracey Fairaway) is beginning to pull away for her, she's started getting chummy with Fairaway's best friend (Tavi Gevinson), which hasn't gone unnoticed. As for Dreyfus's married friends (therapist Toni Collette and Ben Falcone), they seem to spend more time sniping at each other than getting along, a handy reminder that compatibility is key in any couple. Thing is, Dreyfus and Gandolfini are quite good together, which makes one wish Holofcener had minimized the sitcom contrivances, or at the very least eliminated the scene where Dreyfus runs and hides behind a bush to avoid being seen. Not that I doubt her gifts as a comedienne, but her character deserves better. And that's all I have to say about that.