While we’re on the subject of You Hurt My Feelings:

A sequence in the movie serves as a reminder that when one piece of art references another piece of art, it stands to reason that the creators of the former see some sort of resonance between the two.

Midway through, there’s a heated exchange between two parents whose marriage is on the rocks, trying to help their son deal with a young-adult breakup. The couple sits on one side of a table, the kid on the other, and between them lies a copy of Jonathan Franzen’s book Crossroads, appearing in damn near every shot.

The visual subtext of this production-designed framing comments on the action at least threefold.

Firstly, the family are prototypical Franzen readers; it rings true that they’d have his latest novel around the house, informing our conception of who they are.

Secondly, Crossroads is about the dueling realities of familial strife, the impossibility of deducing inner truth from outer behavior within and beyond a nuclear unit … which just so happens to be a major theme of You Hurt My Feelings.

And then there’s the notion that this conversation transpires during a crossroads in the characters’ lives; the son is facing an early heartbreak, while his parents are confronting a pivotal juncture in their relationship. And these individual-but-related crossroads also crisscross each other; separate dramas unfolding simultaneously can’t help but influence each other in the moment, and going forward.

What a prop choice!

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By virtue of how Arian Moayed — a supporting player in You Hurt My Feelings — naturally talks, he’s a comfortable fit in Jamie Lloyd’s Shush-Speak aesthetic, as evidenced by his current performance in Broadway’s A Doll’s House.

Now Jamie should give Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey a call…

….theater-makers I discovered thanks to The Public Theater’s now-bygone Under the Radar Festival….

….and I’ll leave it at that.