Enough Said

Enough Said, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, was emotionally moving on several levels, much less a comedy than a touching study of two middle-agers finding quiet romance. And always, the viewer is aware of Gandolfini’s demise, feeling a sadness watching the big lovable lug in his final performance. And the performance of these two as they tentatively find each other was a moment to savor. Julia, whom we all still see as Seinfeld’s Elaine, was Eva, a traveling masseuse who had to haul her massage table to each of her clients. She meets Albert (Gandolfini) at a party, and both, jokingly, mention that they’re not attracted to anyone they’ve met. She also meets Marianne, a successful poet who decides she may like to have Eva give her a massage. And the plot, somewhat predictable, moves forward from there. Everyone seems to be divorced and the children move from one parent to the other. Everyone seems to have found their first mate impossible to live with, impossible to love beyond the creation of and bearing of one child. Eva and Albert both have daughters who are about to leave for college and both maintain a friendly connection with their ex-spouses. At first, Eva isn’t sure she wants a relationship with this bearded fellow who unsuccessfully fights his big belly and successfully fights his ear hair, but they both discover how much they have in common, and their love develops slowly, quietly. This is a movie about relationships—mothers and daughters, ex-spouses, well-meaning friends, and tentative new partners. Some viewers might be turned off by Louis-Dreyfus’s facial tics and emotive tricks, her face and eyes flashing from joy to despair to fear to embarrassment to disappointment and back again, eyes playing games, chin moving up and down as we remember it whenever Seinfeld’s Elaine was caught in a lie, but I found it delightful and the main thing that makes this movie worth seeing.