Enough Said

Special Presentation

Director: Nicole Holofcener

A sweet and unforced romantic comedy of errors set against the spectre of divorce, Enough Said finds writer/director Holofcener going for a bit more warmth and good will this time out following the darker Please Give. While not a reinvention of anything, it’s a well acted, snappily realized 90 minutes of realistic characters doing realistic things instead of conforming to some kind of dreamlike rom-com ideal.

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) is a massage therapist about to watch her teenage daughter go off to college, and she has just started dating again for the first time in a while, going out with the good natured and big hearted Albert (the late James Gandolfini, in one of his final roles). Things get complicated when Eva’s new client and burgeoning friend Marianne (Catherine Keener) turns out to be Albert’s ex-wife. She never lays off Albert in private about how annoyed she is by him, and it plants seeds of doubt in Eva’s head.

Holofcener knows the territory and the characters well, but the film belongs to Dreyfuss and Gandolfini. It’s great to see Drefuss get this big of a leading role to run with, and her chemistry with Gandolfini is nuanced and believable. It’s also very funny, which helps things immensely. It should stand as a great testament to Gandolfini’s warmth and generosity as an actor.

Screens

Sunday, September 15th, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1, 9:00pm