Getting on with your life sucks. At least, that’s the impression cinema has given us this past decade. Gone are the stories of love-at-first site and happily-ever-after; instead replaced with the harsh reality that times have changed and there’s little to look forward to but isolation, disappointment and wasted opportunities.

So it’s refreshing to see Enough Said grace our screens this year. Nicole Holofcener (Lovely and Amazing) brings us her fifth feature, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld) and James Gandolfini (The Sopranos). Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva, a middle-aged divorcee who meets Albert, artfully performed by Gandolfini, at a party. We watch them waltz through their budding relationship (toe-stubs and all) as their children mature and fly the nest and Eva enters a tentative friendship with a new client of her’s (she’s a masseuse) whilst spectating on the trials and tribulations of her existing fiends’ marriage (portrayed dynamically by Toni Collette and Ben Falcone).

Enough Said breaks the mould of the dystopian middle-aged future by bringing us on a totally believable, and yet delightfully intimate and humorous journey through Eva’s life at a major junction. Holofcener has written and created a story that speaks straight to the heart of everyone in the audience, man or woman, young or old. The story isn’t groundbreaking nor the plot revolutionary, but it’s irrelevant. Instead, the film is a character driven explorations of what the course of relationships is now and how we second guess ourselves in our culture, told with the charm of a Woody Allen classic.

However, what really makes this film is the beautifully nuanced performances of Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfuss. They compliment each other perfectly, the interplay and dialogue utterly truthful and compelling. You come to love each of them and you smile, laugh, cringe and squirm on cue, and the movie is all the better for it. It’s reminds you of how much a tragedy it was that this was one of Gandolfini’s last characters, and the world is a darker place for it. Make sure you don’t miss it, your life will be all the better for seeing this picture.

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