May as well admit it right off the bat: Enough Said is the perfect movie to watch with your parents. It’s emotion-driven, poignant, and family-centric. The best jokes are the ones that hit you in your upper-middle-class gut (if you have one) and make you think, “Wow, yes, that’s so true.”
There is also the external emotional weight of watching the ghost of James Gandolfini perform in a particularly tender role. It’s like taking all the best scenes of Tony Soprano interacting with Meadow and putting them in succession and then subtracting the fact that Tony is a mob boss and making it so he’s actually just kind of a lonely, good guy with a goofy job. That’s the experience, and that’s why Gandolfini’s performance is the beacon in this movie.
Enough Said takes place in a narrow swath of Los Angeles, where men in their twenties hire masseuses and one such masseuse, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, drives a ubiquitous blue Prius and everyone obsesses over what they eat and there are no people of color except the housekeeper hired by Toni Collette’s (strangely Australian) character who always seems to be misplacing things.
The highly predictable plot revolves around Louis-Dreyfus’s character Eva using her masseuse leverage to befriend Albert’s ex-wife (played by Catherine Keener) and subsequently get the dirt on Albert.
Despite the flaws in setting, there are three love stories that give the film its emotional core: one between Albert and Eva; another between Eva and her daughter, Ellen (Tracey Fairaway); and the third, a parallel relationship between Albert and his daughter, Tess (Eve Hewson). The daughters are each shipping off to college, and their parents are touchingly terrified. The scene where Eva and her ex bid farewell to Ellen at the airport is poignant and believable enough to move anyone who has either gone to college or sent their child off recently.
In the end, the film falls into a genre category; it is somewhat of a hybrid between Something’s Gotta Give and The Kids Are All Right. Solid acting and authentic emotion gives way to weak plot and tired, whitewashed cultural stereotypes.
Besides Gandolfini, one highlight is the debut acting performance by blogger Tavi Gevinson, who essentially plays the character she has played in real life: precocious teenager who wisely critiques the adult culture around her.
Who should watch this film: Middle-aged fans of the Sopranos
Who shouldn’t watch this film: Parents who have just dropped their children off at college; most people under forty
Review by Melanie Broder. Follow her on Twitter @melbroder
