It can be nice to hear lies about oneself, bad to hear incivility. In Nicole Holofcener‘s You Hurt My Feelings (2023), people certifiably hear both.

Herein: “A novelist’s longstanding marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book” (imdb).

But Holofcener, who wrote and directed this comedy-drama, is not pretentious. She declines to make the “upending” worse than it actually would be and is intent to frequently amuse us. We do shake our heads over human behavior, though. Feelings is seamlessly made with appealing performances by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Arian Moayed and plenty of others. It’s better written, I believe, than the director’s Please Give. The film reminds us that human approval is not easily had; ah, but the piece easily has mine.

Ella MaCay (2025) is about a female politician, likely a Democrat, who is smart but also harried and dissatisfied in her relationships with other people. Probably it could have been shaped into a palatable movie, but no: it’s insipid, dopey, sentimental, and pushy. James Brooks didn’t know what he was doing.

While viewing it, I was afraid the 2025 Paul Feig film The Housemaid would present a cruel, and thus grim, ending; but not so. In fact it was sort of inspiring. A thriller, the pic is adapted from a best-selling novel, and it itself is a smash hit. It deserves to be. It’s a dramatic dreadnought starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried (both excellent) and Brandon Sklenar (good). It’s unerringly photographed by John Schwartzman. Not without nudity, not without Nina’s breast pump, Housemaid is plainly sensual. BTW, one reason I believe the film is so popular is that the eroticism in it is strictly heterosexual, not gay. Bon appetit!

The animated film Robot Dreams‘ world of humanoid animals contains Dog—a dog—who is lonely in New York City and so purchases a humanoid robot to become his friend. It is not unlike having an AI girlfriend. The two have a great time together, but loss begins to beckon. . . Directed by Pablo Berger, the longish movie is a 2023 Spanish-French production, very agreeable. It’s patently charming to see a baby bird looking at the robot for advice or encouragement as mother bird teaches it to fly. Or when a lollypop-sucking raccoon works assiduously to repair busted-up Robot by adding parts to it. Except for a comic scene where there are obscene gestures, RD is a family film (not a mere children’s film), with a likable story and some pathos.