Film / Enough Said

Enough Said (2013) is a Deconstructive Romantic Comedy written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, and starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the late James Gandolfini. Eva (Dreyfus) is a middle-aged, divorced masseuse who begins dating another divorcee, Albert (Gandolfini). She also gets a new, wealthy client named Marianne (Catherine Keener), who Eva gets to share bad husband stories with. Everything's great... until Eva finds out that Albert is Marianne's hated ex-husband. Hilarity ensues. But not really.

The film is notable for being one of Gandolfini's last performances before his tragic death, and for being his last starring role. Spoilers ahead!

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Enough Said contains examples of:

• Amicable Exes:
  • Eva and Peter (her ex-husband) have a positive co-parenting relationship, even as they recognize that they weren't right for each other as spouses.
  • Downplayed, but Albert and Marianne can be civil with each other, and Marianne actually looks happy to introduce him to Eva (who she doesn't realize Albert is already dating). Even after Albert finds out about what's been going on, he mentions later that he still visits Marianne when their daughter is there. It's implied that Marianne's gossiping was her way of coping with the emotions surrounding Tess leaving for college, which she projected onto Albert.
• An Aesop: Eva learns quite a few.
  • A woman is not automatically on the right side of a break-up or divorce. Usually, both sides are at fault.
  • Just because a relationship ended badly, that doesn't mean your ex is (or was) a bad person, or doesn't deserve to meet someone new. They are not unworthy of love.
  • Not communicating with your partner about a quirk you don't like will only lead to resentment, and at worst, unintentional abuse on your part.
  • You shouldn't let someone else's opinion about someone determine how you feel about them. You need to trust your own thoughts and feelings.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: At the dinner party, Eva gets increasingly sarcastic and insensitive towards Albert because she drank too much wine. She also drunkenly puts a baseball in a kitchen drawer, which ends up inadvertently leading to Sarah's maid quitting.
• Belated Love Epiphany: Eva goes through this after accidentally breaking Albert's heart. She pretty much says as much when Albert breaks up with her.
  Tess: He just really really liked you.
  Eva: (holding back tears) I just really really liked him.
• Blatant Lies: One of Marianne's criticisms of Albert is that he can only cook one thing (pasta with eggplant and mozzarella), but this completely contradicts the earlier scene where he cooks Eva a large, diverse breakfast. Eva completely falls for it, which shows how little she thinks for herself.
• Daddy's Girl: Downplayed, as Tess spends equal time with Albert and Marianne, but several scenes hint that she is closer with her dad. She looks absolutely livid when Albert is heartbroken by Eva.
• Deadpan Snarker: Both Eva and Albert have this sort of sense of humor, which is a part of why they quickly hit it off.
  Eva: We should get hobbies.
  Albert: Actually I weave.
  Eva: Oh yeah?
  Albert: Yeah, I do it in the garage.
  Eva: (Acting impressed) Really?
  Albert: ...No.
  Eva: (Bursts out laughing)

• Deconstructor Fleet: Almost every trope from modern romantic comedies is challenged in this film in some way.
• Domestic Abuse: Implied by how Albert reacts to Eva picking on him at the dinner. He calls her out for making him feel like he just spent the evening with Marianne, implying that this was something she did frequently during their marriage. This, and Albert needing space from Eva after, more or less confirms that Marianne was emotionally abusive of him.
• Easily Forgiven: Nope. Unlike most romantic comedies, Eva's apology to Albert doesn't fix their relationship, it's just a first step. He still breaks up with her, only being able to see her again after several months. It's only after they give each other space that they're ready to reconcile.
• Empty Nest: Eva, Albert, Marianne, and Peter are all trying to cope with the approaching departure of their kids for college.
• Fetishes Are Weird: A Bait-and-Switch Aversion example. On their second date, Albert is revealed to have a foot fetish when Eva catches him looking at her feet a little too long. He even has a Freudian Excuse that could've been easily misinterpreted by her, but Eva has no issue with Albert's fetish, and only playfully teases him about it. It is never brought up again, except for a later scene where Eva gets a pedicure for the first time. It's not stated outright, but it's pretty clear why. It's also the only quirk Albert has that Marianne never brings up.
• Gentle Giant: Albert. He's incredibly gentle despite dwarfing Eva in size, which is a big part of why he's so endearing.
• Henpecked Husband: Deconstructed. The dinner scene where Eva picks on Albert shows how someone with self-respect would actually feel if they were treated like this. He finds the whole ordeal embarrassing and hurtful.
  Albert: Why do you care that I don't know how to whisper?
  Eva: Huh?
  Albert: What was that? I mean, that was embarrassing.
• Hypocrite: Marianne.
  • One of her criticisms of Albert is that he has no friends, and then immediately after admits that she doesn't either.
  • Her claiming Albert is too much of an emotional wreck to drive Tess to college and that it would overwhelm her, when Marianne's feeling the same way and just hiding it by acting like she's happy Tess is leaving. Tess points out she prefers that Albert is honest.
• Informed Flaw: Most of Marianne's gossiping about Albert is this. She treats all of Albert's quirks as if they are universal deal-breakers, which makes Eva insecure about how much she likes him. It's completely intentional. Eva ultimately learns that there's nothing wrong with these things, Marianne just found them annoying, which says more about her than him.
  • The night table issue. Albert doesn't have night tables, and to Marianne, this is a metaphor for how his life "has no foundation". Eva ultimately realizes there's nothing wrong with this.
  • Marianne hated that Albert picks the onions out of guacamole. Even Eva points out on their first date that she doesn't see the issue. It only starts to get on her nerves when she starts acting like Marianne.
  • Marianne claims that Albert was terrible in bed, and that she found him "sexually repulsive". This is despite that Eva admits early on that she finds him handsome, and thought the sex was great.
  • Marianne thought Albert was dumb because he never understood her poetry. To her dread, Eva realizes that she also doesn't understand Marianne's poetry, implying it's just not for everyone. Ironically, this happens right before the truth comes out and Albert breaks up with Eva.
• Ironic Echo: During the dinner with her friends, Eva picks on Albert's weight problem by asking if he knows how many calories are in guacamole, which he's eating at the time. Later, when Eva goes to apologize to him, Tess offers her a Cinnabon while they're waiting. When Albert arrives and sees Eva with the cinnamon bun, he says this:
  Albert: Do you know how many calories are in that?
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Albert's daughter, Tess. She's a bit pompous and is clearly going through an elitist phase, but she's also nice to Eva and clearly protective of Albert.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Some of Marianne's criticisms towards Albert are this, especially those concerning his weight. In sharp contrast, while Albert makes no secret of how he and his ex-wife did not get along, he never actually talks badly about her.
  • Eva starts treating Albert badly after her perception of him changes due to what Marianne says. In particular, to get a second opinion from her other friends, she invites Albert over for a get-together with them. Even though they like Albert and totally accept his harmless quirks, Eva goes out of her way to point them out, which clearly embarrasses Albert. It gets to the point that her friends call her out for bullying him, and he is too hurt to spend the night with her. Thankfully, she realizes how insensitive this was and later apologizes.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: One of the bad things Marianne gossips to Eva about her ex Albert (not knowing Eva and Albert started dating) is about Albert being a terrible and clumsy lover who "sexually repulsed her". This obviously makes Eva very worried about her growing relationship with Albert. Once again, this is a case of Eva second-guessing herself, as she actually enjoyed having sex with Albert until Marianne said this.
• Nice Guy: Also Albert. Even when he's angry at Eva for hurting him, he still treats her polite, doesn't insult her, and never raises his voice when he's calling her out.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: An interesting case. Originally, the character of Albert was written with Louis C.K. in mind, but due to prior engagements he could not take the role. If you pay attention to Albert's dialogue, this becomes much clearer. Gandolfini got the role after, and while the dialogue stayed much the same, he played Albert more as a Gentle Giant and Nice Guy than in the original script.
• Pet the Dog: While Marianne has little issue insulting Albert about his weight and other quirks, the one thing she never brings up to Eva is his fetish. Either it was something she didn't mind, or she knows that gossiping about it would cross a line.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Used for Character Development, and Defied. Eva, Marianne, and (to a lesser extent) Eva's friends, all have an outlook like this in regards to certain relationships. Eva knows to some extent that her plan to get information on Albert isn't right, but she justifies this by comparing the situation to looking up whether a hotel is good or not. Marianne takes no responsibility for her marriage with Albert failing, despite his quirks being fairly harmless, and Marianne cheating on him at one point (which she never brings up while shit-talking Albert). As for Eva's friends, they assume that their cleaning lady is doing a bad job because of a few mistakes, when she actually has to deal with a lot of things they didn't even realize they were causing.
  • This is further deconstructed with how Eva thinks one of her clients is a jerk because he won't ever help her up the stairs with the massage table. When her friend Will asks if she ever asks him to, both Eva and Sarah claim she shouldn't have to. Towards the end of the film, Eva decides to actually ask the client for help with the table, and he immediately does so and apologizes for not helping sooner.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sarah and Will's maid, Cathy, lets loose a pretty wicked one on them when they get mad at her for not putting something in the right place, and then quits. She calls them both lazy slobs who make her job needlessly hard and degrading. They take it to heart, and hire her back after apologizing off-screen.
• Refuge in Audacity: When Tess and Albert find Eva at Marianne's house, Eva pretends that it's just a massive coincidence that they all know each other, and acts surprised that Albert knows Marianne. It doesn't work.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Marianne has this affect on Eva, but interestingly, it's almost completely Eva's fault. Marianne even states at one point that she feels like she's sounding overly negative by bitching about Albert, but Eva still coaxes information out of her. Albert calls her out for this.
  Albert: So while you were torn (about ending her secret friendship with Marianne), she was poisoning our relationship, and poisoning your perception of me. Now why would you want that?
• The Unfair Sex: Averted hard. Albert is a kind, gentle, and funny man who happens to have a lot of quirks, which doesn’t at all stop Eva from adoring him. Until... she starts hearing his ex talk about how much Albert repulsed her sexually (sex that Eva enjoyed), and how all of his seemingly harmless quirks drove her crazy. While she still wants to be with Albert, Eva automatically assumes that Marianne's incredibly petty complaints must be correct. Eva continues to coax information out of her out of fear that things might go wrong between her and Albert. After a while, this starts to change Eva’s own perception of him, causing her to make fun of him during a get together with her friends, which they call her out on. While already hurt by this, when Albert finds out why she started treating him badly, he is heartbroken and breaks up with her. Eva feels terrible about this, as she really did like Albert for who he is. In the end, she is the one who makes up with him, and they re-start their relationship a few months later.
• Weight Woe: Albert admits to Eva in one scene that he knows his weight is a serious risk to his health, and that he's just struggling to lose weight. This is why he's so hurt when Eva makes a sarcastic comment about how much he eats.