WHO’S IN IT?
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld), James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), Catherine Keener (Capote), Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine), Ben Falcone (Bridesmaids), Toby Huss (Cowboys and Aliens), Michaela Watkins (Saturday Night Live), Tavi Gevinson (Cadaver)
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Nicole Holofcener (Please Give), director, writer; Stefanie Azpiazu (Our Idiot Brother) and Anthony Bregman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), producers; Marcelo Zarvos (Friends With Kids), composer; Xavier Pérez Grobet (I Love You Phillip Morris), cinematographer; Robert Frazen (Synecdoche, New York), editor
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Eva (Louis-Dreyfus) is a single parent facing her daughter’s forthcoming move to college which, of course, she is dreading. She soon meets Albert (Gandolfini), a sweet and charming man who is also facing problems with his departing children. As they begin to fall in love, Eva befriends a new client through her work as a masseuse, but Marianne (Keener) keeps going on about her ex-husband. No prizes for guessing who that might be, then…
WHY SHOULD YOU BE EXCITED?
After a surprise nomination from the Writer’s Guild of America (that’s the WGA for all you acronym lovers out there) for her screenplay for Please Give a few years ago, Nicole Holofcener is back with another small tale of love, life and the complications along the way.
The good news is that Enough Said is getting the attention that it deserves following its healthy debut on the film festival circuit last month. The slightly lesser news, however, is that it’s getting said attention for one bittersweet aspect of it.
The world of cinema, stage and especially television was shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of James Gandolfini back in June. A national treasure thanks to his iconic role as mobster Tony Soprano in the hit TV show The Sopranos, he has also been featured in many films as a character actor, all of which were very different to the last. From thrillers like True Romance and Zero Dark Thirty to comedies like In The Loop and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone to even family films like Where The Wild Things Are, he was also a heavily diverse actor.
Of course, one of the last roles he took on before his untimely passing just happened to be Enough Said, a romantic dramady which gives us everything that we loved about the man’s natural abilities through a character tailor made for someone like him. It remains his final completed performance, but not his final work – he co-stars in next year’s Animal Rescue opposite Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace – which makes you want to savour this as much as you can because there’s not going to be anyone like him to appear on the screen for a long, long time.
But don’t let Gandolfini’s reigning presence here overshadow the work of the other actors in this movie. Julia Louis-Dreyfus actually has the main protagonist role, and she seems to be fully in her element once more here. Catherine Keener and Toni Collette play other major parts, and as ever they do fine work here too. All of them have the pleasure of reciting Holofcener’s witty and lovable dialogue, cementing another stepping stone on her slow rise to glory on the indie circuit.
Enough Said may be Nicole Holofcener’s film, and rightly so, but to the public who loyally sat in front of their TV sets and watched Tony Soprano over the years and even paid to see films he was in, it will always be one of James Gandolfini’s final marks on the industry that will never be rubbed off.
