Form and Content

You Hurt My Feelings (2023, HOLOFCENER) and After Hours (1985, SCORSESE) take wildly different approaches to presenting their films. They both observe and follow an individual’s ability to communicate and understand another person. You Hurt My Feelings follows a handful of individuals’ - all family - develop the balance between honest and compassionate communication. It has a clear, straight-forward, plot with editing that complements those intentions. Letting us focus on each character's individual struggles and journey to connect and understand their effect on others over a year or so. After Hours follows a single main character’s adventure during one night. Without context and rapport developed through other complex characters, it is difficult to know how there can be any improvement to this character’s circumstance. The same way, if we were isolated, we could become radicalized if we were our only truth. With no friends or close relationships introduced, we are left observing through only the main character’s point of view. Is this reality? Or is this a figment of this single character's imagination? Can we trust the other character’s perspective? Like the main character- we only just met them. We are left ungrounded with loud and intense editing communicating the character’s confusion and disorientation. 

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS (2023, HOLOFCENER)

Theme: This film explores the motives of communication within different types of relationships (familial, spouse, child, professional) and how thoughts and opinions are shared within these. Is there a line between critique and encouraging someone's passion? 

Setting: New York City

Editing: Smooth, easy to follow. 

Sound: Audio is clear and easy to comprehend. Few distortions.

Music: The music sometimes appears at the beginning of scenes that seem to emphasize the feelings the characters are trying to communicate. The music itself was not the main focus but used to complement the scene not overwhelm it.

Characters: 

Beth (writer, teacher, volunteer) is married to Don (therapist) and have a son, Eliot (aspiring writer, dispensary manager).

Sarah (interior designer, volunteer), Beth’s sister, is married to Mark (actor).

Georgia is Beth and Sarah’s mother.

Exposition: Carolyn: “You know what, Jonathan, leave him [Don] alone. He looks tired.” Jonathan: “You do.” A seemingly unhappy couple agrees on something. This introduces Don’s character. Beth is introduced with donuts in tow on her way to the class she teaches and stops by her son’s job to check on him. Eliot's co-workers steal some of the donuts. The family reconvenes at a park to have lunch. The family seems close and happy. Unlike the couple from the opening scene. The couple goes on to have an anniversary dinner presenting gifts to each other gold leaf shaped earrings for Beth and a v-neck for Don. Don compliments the final draft of the fiction novel she is writing. 

Inciting Incident: Beth, feeling confident about her final draft, meets with her agent, Sylvia, who suggests she write another one. She is disappointed this is her first fiction writing project. Don suggests his wife sends her draft to a different agent who showed interest in representing her in the past. Later, her and her sister attempt to meet their husbands at a sports retail store, Paragon, when they overhear their conversation. Don does not like her novel. This makes her ill. She leans on him a lot, asking him to read her drafts. He says they are good every time. Now she doesn’t have trust. She doesn’t think he respects her if he doesn’t like her fiction novel. Her sister tries to compare her husband, Mark’s, acting in the movies he is in but she still encourages him.

Rising Action:  Now at a bar, still consoling her bruised ego, Beth starts a conversation with a couple asking if they like the art one creates and the flower arrangements the other makes. They end the scene with this couple bickering because while they offer critiques in private, this couple’s first reaction was to not share the critiques of each other's work to a stranger. However, they call each other out on the inconsistencies in their private and public comments. Beth becomes very insecure and starts being passive aggressive, creating distance between her and Don. Don very quickly asks what happens. No direct answer is given. Beth continues to sleep in the living room.

Climax: At Mark’s birthday dinner, everyone is unhappy. Emotions come to a peak. Passivity is slowly pushed to direct confrontation. When the topic of Beth’s draft comes up, Don continues to encourage his wife saying it is good. Beth finally voices her resentment that has had time to steep, then walks out after Don’s attempt to talk his way out of the situation fails. She is emotional. Despite Don’s explanation, she continues to sleep in the living room.

Falling Action: After Elliot voices his frustrations with them, Beth and Don finally have a productive conversation. Don was doing the same type of encouragement that Beth was doing for their son. Although, she feels entitled to Don’s true opinion - not white lies- even though he emphasizes he loves Beth- not what she does for work. We then discover Beth has told similar white lies when she brings an array of leaf earrings he has gifted her. She told him she liked a specific pair years prior and he just ran with it. She admits she wears the others to make him happy. Don now feels safe enough to reveal his distaste for V-neck sweaters. He doesn’t want to show his chest and doesn’t understand their purpose outside of a “yacht in the wind”. There is still some tension present at this point. Beth and Don later reconcile while she vents about the robbery she and her son experienced at the dispensary. 

Conclusion: A year later, at their anniversary dinner, they both exchange the same silly gifts they now know the other dislikes and laugh. 

“Director Nicole Holofcener specializes in these kinds of small-scale character dramas that are often leavened with comedy that stems from the characters’ insecurities.” (The Last Detail, blog)

The film does indeed explore not only Beth’s insecurity as a writer but each of the characters I mentioned. They each have their own story with each of the plot points mentioned above. I chose to highlight Beth’s. Beth has trauma from her childhood courtesy of her verbally abusive father. Her husband, Don, knows this (as does the public via her memoir) and perhaps overly compensates for her insecurity and over-reliance on his opinion by being excessively complimentary and encouraging. Eventually, she does get over this. All of the main characters develop healthier communication and self-esteem. Making the frustrating habits of each, at the beginning of the movie, have a clear purpose for existing in the film.

AFTER HOURS (1985, SCORSESE)

Theme: Faced with the reality of his mundane life, a man seemingly explores a night outside of his usual routine.

Setting: Soho, New York

Editing: Chaotic, unsettling, almost constantly moving

Sound: At times difficult to understand. From the distortion used during a phone call to the general dialogue requiring high volume and rewinds to fully comprehend its content.

Music: Large and dramatic. Intentionally overwhelming most scenes it is included. Also, used by characters to create or match the mood of their current experience.

Characters:

Paul, the man with the mundane life and office job.

Marcy, the woman who disrupts Paul’s usual routine. Light hair, physical features and dress.

Kiki, a woman who is Marcy’s roommate and a paperweight artist. Dark hair and dress, strong features, alternative music taste.

Julie, a woman who is a waitress at a bar and an artist. Light hair and dress, 50s/60s aesthetic and music taste.

Gail, a woman who is undercover as an ice cream truck driver. Light hair, combination of light and dark dress.

June, a woman who frequents a club she lives under and an artist. Light hair, dark dress.

Exposition: Paul leaves his office after training a new hire who has higher aspirations. Large golden gates close behind him. He goes home, flips through the cable available on tv. Bored by his options he then decides to go to a diner. Bringing “Tropic of Cancer” by Henry Miller. 

Inciting Incident: A woman, Marcy, seated at the table in front of him, starts a conversation. She loves that book. He jokes about the other tropics and mentions this isn’t his first time reading it. She invites herself to his table and sits. Gives her friend, Kiki’s, a number to him before leaving since he expressed interest in the paper weights she makes and sells. He calls Kiki when he returns home from the diner. Kiki’s tone is a bit odd but he makes plans to meet her to buy a paperweight and see Marcy.

Rising Action: Loses the only cash he has during the taxi ride to Marcy and Kiki’s apartment, upsetting the driver. The buzzer to their apartment is broken. Kiki throws keys out the window when he arrives so he can enter the apartment. Kiki, short dark hair, is wearing a dark short skirt and brassiere. Somehow has an extra mens shirt to lend him while the shirt he dirtied, paper macheing a lifesize body in a defensive pose, is in the wash. Kiki falls asleep during a massage she requests. Marcy, blonde medium length hair, arrives in a light colored shirt tucked into a light colored midi length skirt. She invites him to their room and has him wait there while she takes a shower...oddly elated by him considering they just met that day but she feels something special... ”Tonight, I feel like, I feel like I’m gonna let loose or something. I feel like, I feel like something incredible is really gonna happen here. [ intense giggle] I feel SOOooOooo excited. I don’t know why. I feel it. I’m glad you came.” eventually winking. No paperweight to be seen at this point. The oddities he has observed and discovers about Marcy and Kiki become too much and slips out of the apartment. Despite having a boring job and seeming to be a law abiding citizen, he jumps the subway gates in an attempt to use the train without a token as he is unable to afford the new increased fare. Facing immediate repercussions. “It must be a full moon.” the officer who stopped Paul says while he walks away.

Climax: Desperate, Paul continues to experience increasingly dramatic circumstances that somehow all connect back to Marcy or Kiki and his unfortunate decision to stray from his mundane routine. He notices a woman in his vicinity with each feeble attempt to find refuge or return home. These circumstances eventually snowball into an angry mob searching for him. 

Falling Action: He finds himself trapped in a club, accepting his fate he invites a final woman to have a final dance. She appears to want to rescue him by hiding him in her basement apartment under the club. She too is an artist using paper mache to form life sized male sculptures. She disguises him as one of these. Eventually abandoning him, trapped.

Conclusion: Now encased, his body is somehow lifted out of the basement apartment and into a van by robbers. It is late, they are driving for a while and erratically. The rear doors break open when the robbers take a turn at high speed. His stiff body falls out onto the street with a force hard enough to break his paper mache prison. He gets up only to discover the gate to his job in front of him. It is early morning and he is just in time to clock in for his morning shift despite being dirty.

“The camerawork in After Hours is restless…the camera is constantly in motion…” (The Last Detail, Blog). So much so, I found it dizzying but it communicates the stress and discomfort of Paul very well. 

I did not mention any names beyond the first two women, nor did I bother to define any of the men in the film. I do not think this actually happened. I genuinely believe he is dreaming and sleepwalks to work the following day. Why? The book he brings to the diner and claims he has read before, “Tropic of Cancer”, is a controversial and erotic book. I think this inspires a dream. A quote from Joe Frank’s “Lies”- an inspiration for the writer of this movie: “...he had a feeling he was playing out some scenario with her that she repeated with other men. Where she teased them, rejected them, mocked them, and then felt affectionate towards them” (Andrew Hearst, Blog). I find it interesting how the women are presented. They are all perceived by the character as having interest in him. I feel each woman plays a part or parts in Joe Frank’s description. This description and Paul also seem to be somewhat similar to an incel’s ideology. We are not introduced to anyone - especially a love interest - of Paul’s before he goes to this diner. In the opening scene, he glances at a photo on another’s desk of a child- suggesting this person has procreated. His character eventually laments something along the lines of just wanting to leave his apartment and meet a nice girl. Sounds…desperate…like an incel. Who too would have similar feelings of persecution and rejection that often snowball into larger insane beliefs (in the movie, scenarios) that seem to be experienced by Paul. This truly is the only perspective my brain can comprehend such an insane plot. Maybe it is not meant to have a satisfying ending. Maybe it wanted to create the same feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration Paul seems to have felt.