It is unfortunate that director Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money, Lovely and Amazing) Enough Said was the last film that James Gandolfini (television’s The Sopranos, The Last Castle) completed before his untimely death, but what a lasting impression he will leave with the mass public in the most real and honest movie of 2013. Gandolfini has frightened us on the big and small screens for the last 20 years. He has played some of the vilest characters and some of the meanest. Like me, you might go into this movie thinking Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a romantic dramedy. There’s A) No chance it will be good, and B) Even if the critics somehow give it a positive review, there is no way I will give it a chance because it will be so unbelievable. Just like with Gandolfini as some mobster, hard military man, or hitman, we think of Louis-Dreyfus as the queen of goofy television comedies like Seinfeld, Veep, and The New Adventures of Old Christine. There is no way this movie could ever work in the world, right? Well, I will say unequivocally that this assumption is wrong. This movie is not just good. It is great. The chemistry between Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus is not something that just gets by. It is something that works effortlessly.
Holofcener (Friends With Money, Lovely and Amazing) is new to me. I’ve heard of Friends With Money, but it took me to look it up even to remember what it is about. I was surprised to learn that the relatively unknown director has written and directed four feature-length films since 2001 and the worst of those still received a 72% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In Enough Said, I think the prowess of her writing rather than her directing really took the movie to its heights. In fact, I think once the script reached the hands of the two superstar actors, all she had to do was sit back and watch. Well, of course, it wasn’t that simple, but she certainly had the right lead actors cast for the film.

And as awesome as Louis-Dreyfus was, Gandolfini stole the show. There’s kind of a dark cloud hanging over this movie that you can’t avoid. You know that this was his final (completed) performance. It’s something that lingers with you throughout the movie. But, as I mentioned in my opening paragraph, what a role for him to go out on. He was so different from anything you’ve ever seen. He plays Albert, a kind, gentle, likable middle-aged divorced man with a single daughter who he cherishes and is about to leave for college. The relationship with his ex-wife is terse at best. Albert meets Eva at a party that she attended with her best friends Sara (Toni Colette – The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine) and Will (Ben Falcone – The Heat, What To Expect When You’re Expecting). It’s there where Eva, a masseuse, also meets Marianne (Catherine Keener – Capote, Being John Malkovich), who, unbeknownst at the time, is the ex-wife of Albert.

At their first couple of sessions, Marianne rips on her ex-husband, telling Eva everything she couldn’t stand about Albert. Meanwhile, Albert had asked Sara and Will for Eva’s number, and she agreed to go out with him a couple of times. Eva still hasn’t put it together that the two were once married. Instead, she listens intently to Marianne and seems grateful that her ex-husband (she too is divorced but is much more friendly with her ex) wasn’t that bad. At the same time, she is slowly falling for Albert. They have a lot in common, including their daughters, who will leave for college soon. Similarly, both over age 50 feel that any romantic relationship might be null and void. They both feel a similar emptiness in losing their daughters and a bond that the laughs they share over meals and movies can grow into something positive, real, and lasting. When she finds out that Marianne and Albert were once married, Eva’s inner battle really begins. She knows too much and uses that against these two people she has become close to. She realizes that she needs to tell Albert about Marianne and vice-versa. It’s just that she doesn’t know how and the more she gets to know each person, the more difficult it becomes for her to say anything.

This movie is awesome. It’s classified as a comedy, and while you’ll chuckle to yourself a few times, you won’t be wiping the tears away from laughing so hard. It’s cute. It’s sweet. It’s happy. It’s sad. Its characters are real, and the story is believable. As I stated in my first paragraph, it is the most real movie of the year. It earned a rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and is a movie I recommend to everyone.

Plot 9.5/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 10/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 10/10
Directing  9/10
Cinematography 8.5/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
94%

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