Girls on Film: Will Enough Said finally earn Nicole Holofcener the recognition she deserves?

The talented writer-director, whose films have routinely been dismissed as "chick flicks," is a must-see for fans of Woody Allen or Jim Jarmusch

Nicole Holofcener
(Image credit: (Larry Busacca/Getty Images))

Behind a seemingly impenetrable wall of soft-focused sappiness and routine mislabeling stands one of Hollywood's most undervalued talents: Nicole Holofcener, the director behind this week's limited release Enough Said. Anyone who looks at the DVD covers attached to her films will see a landscape of well-made-up women smiling blankly through a heavily airbrushed filter. Those images are enough to conjure up the dreaded "chick flick" designation, leading one to imagine any number of blandly heartfelt stories about women coming together under the flimsiest of conceits. Unfortunately, it's a perception that's also been bolstered by reviewers who — even when delivering rave reviews — call films like Please Give a "bitchy chat-fest chick flick."

It's a label that Holofcener herself rejects. Good or bad, her films are a series of explorations about imperfect people who hold humor, darkness, and rawness for both genders — and it's time for distributors, critics, and audiences to start treating them that way.

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Monika Bartyzel

Monika Bartyzel is a freelance writer and creator of Girls on Film, a weekly look at femme-centric film news and concerns, now appearing at TheWeek.com. Her work has been published on sites including The Atlantic, Movies.com, Moviefone, Collider, and the now-defunct Cinematical, where she was a lead writer and assignment editor.