Enough Said, a film by Nicole Holofcener

Enough Said, a 2013 film starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, offers an adults-eye view of misunderstandings, secrets, and how we muddle through after sabotaging our best prospects. Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva, a masseuse, 10 years post-divorce, with her daughter about to leave for college on the opposite coast. Gandolfini is Albert, a divorced dad in a similar situation; they meet at a party, and cautiously begin seeing each other. Both have been burned – they’re not looking for commitment, but they’re about to be home solo, which they’re dreading. 

Eva’s new client, Marianne (Catherine Keener), is a poet, also divorced, with a college-bound daughter. Eva’s clients talk while she’s massaging them, and Marianne, facing loneliness with her daughter’s imminent departure, cultivates her as a friend and confidante. At some point Eva realizes Marianne is Albert’s ex – it’s so awkward she can’t bring herself to say anything – and yet, as she hears more from Marianne, Eva begins to needle him about the same issues that made Marianne divorce him. 

This is a Holofcener film, in which ugly secrets spill and the characters have to clean up their mess, in a humiliatingly-public way. She also highlights male vs female communication styles and expectations: one of Eva’s clients is a young man whose apartment is up a steep flight of stairs. He stands at his door watching her haul her massage table up, week after week. When she complains at dinner with friends, the woman agrees he should offer to help her. The husband says, “Have you asked?” and Eva and his wife both say she shouldn’t have to. This married couple, Toni Collette and Ben Falcone, have the same level of annoyance with each other’s foibles as Eva and her ex, and Albert and Marianne. It’s fair to ask why they’re still together while their friends are not – do they just have thicker skins? 

Should we be so ready to bail when we arrive at those “I can’t take it any more” moments? You are surely your own perfect roommate, and everyone else falls short – too neat, too sloppy, too driven, too laid-back – but if the price of not tolerating these differences is to live alone, do we really want that, for ourselves or for society? After Covid isolation, it’s become clear how many social skills we’ve lost – how to compromise, how to listen, how to empathize, how to have patience. How to be good partners, friends, neighbors, fellow-citizens. 

Holofcener shows situations where we have to work through these issues, even when it feels easier to just walk away. It’s hard to connect in deep and honest ways – should we be blowing off relationships because we’ve embarrassed ourselves or those we’re getting to know? Can we be forgiving, cut each other some slack, and set aside judgment? As Rodney King famously pleaded, after receiving a “wood shampoo” from 34 cops, “Can’t we all just get along?”