I wrote earlier this year about the existence of two 2023 films with the word "feelings" in the title, but since their U.S. release dates were separated by a month, I didn't envision that they would make a viable theatrical double feature.
Fortunately, in Australia their release dates were separated by only a week.
Nicole Holofcener's You Hurt My Feelings hit cinemas on June 15th, with Gene Stupnitsky's No Hard Feelings following suit on June 22nd. On Tuesday night, I saw them back to back, because I was not missing that opportunity.
As an extra novelty, my wife joined me -- but only for the first film. (She felt someone needed to go home to feed our kids dinner.) We think it was the first movie just the two of us had seen in the theater together, without our kids present, since Joker, which was not a pleasant experience for either of us.
The extra casualness with rules -- leaving our 12-year-old at home in charge of our nine-year-old -- was a result of it being school holidays. I usually get off work around 4:30, and judged that we could make it to Yarraville by 4:50 to see No Hard Feelings. (And only just did -- I didn't factor in the extra time it would take during rush hour traffic.) Then with only about ten minutes in between them, You Hurt My Feelings would follow at 6:50. Popcorn and peanut M&M's would suffice as my dinner.
Neither film reached the heights I had hoped. As it's been out longer, I wrote a review of You Hurt My Feelings first, which you can find here. I expect to write my No Hard Feelings review tomorrow if you want to check the link to the right.
I've already landed on a 7/10 (3.5 stars) for Holofcener's film, which I think might be a little generous -- and if I end up with the same rating for Stupnitsky's, it will also be a little generous.
But because I really don't want these films to disappear from the theatrical release schedule, since these represent two of the more endangered types of mainstream films, I don't mind if I assess them a little more generously than they deserve.
And anyway, I really don't want to hurt their feelings.
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