Enough Said (2013) * *

Directed by:  Nicole Holofcener

Starring:  James Gandolfini, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Catherine Keener, Toni Collette, Ben Falcone

James Gandolfini died shortly before this film's release.   He shows his versatility here as a large, divorced, lonely man who finds a love interest in a masseuse who is unknowingly friends with his ex-wife who badmouths him at every opportunity.     I can't imagine why the ex-wife would badmouth him.     He seems like a really nice guy.

Enough Said is about Albert and the women who clearly aren't good enough for him.     The ex-wife is a shrew and the masseuse Eva (Louis-Dreyfus) is an easily manipulated woman who probably wouldn't even want to date this guy if the script didn't require her to.     There isn't a lot of spark in their relationship.     The way Eva fawns all over her newfound friend/client Marianne (Keener), I was halfway expecting Eva to make a move on her.  

Most of Eva's conversations with Marianne concern Marianne pointing out her ex's faults.    Until a crucial point, she conveniently doesn't refer to him by his first name.    But soon Marianne's criticisms take hold and Eva begins to question whether she wants a relationship with Albert.     Naturally, Albert learns that Eva and his ex are friends and deduces reasonably that Marianne is poisoning his relationship with Eva.    They break up and if you think they won't get back together then you're watching the wrong movie.

Enough Said isn't horrible.    It's just meh.   It's so quiet and subtle that it tends to slip into its own coma.     Situations are set up with little or no payoff.    Even the payoffs don't add up to much.    The characters use their inside voices so often that you have to listen hard to catch the dialogue.    There was a lot of clamoring about how Gandolfini should've received a posthumous Oscar nomination for this film.     I enjoyed him in it, but nothing about the performance screamed "Best Supporting Actor."   

I've seen another of director Nicole Holofcener's films, 2006's Friends With Money, which was as underwhelming as Enough Said.     There is plenty of conversation in that film and this one.    Holofcener is trying to make the dialogue seem like "realistic" conversation, but sometimes we go to movies to be electrified by powerful dialogue one doesn't hear every day.    Enough Said is whatever the opposite of electrifying is.