Enough Said seems to be one of them:
After watching [writer-director Nicole] Holofcener’s work, you may find yourself thinking about how frequently characters in movies seem to have been assigned their jobs at random, merely in order to give them something to do. Who can remember what the women in Bridesmaids do when they’re not preparing for the wedding? … The fact that they have credible (if not necessarily gratifying) jobs is by no means the only way in which Holofcener’s men and women seem more like people we know, or might know, than do most of the one-dimensional figures we have grown accustomed to seeing on screen. She’s not afraid to let her characters be at once flawed and appealing, strong and weak, damaged and healthy, generous and self-centered; even the most clear-sighted must cope with disabling blind spots. They seem like human beings, and if they behave heroically, as they often do, theirs is the sort of heroism that enables an ordinary person to get through an ordinary day without needing to defuse a ticking bomb or save their families from a spectacular, special-effects apocalypse.
Andrew O’Hehir pegs down Holofcener’s style:
Gandolfini fits surprisingly well into the universe of Holofcener, a bracingly intelligent and exacting writer-director who’s made just five features in her 17-year career, all of them searching for a sweet spot partway between Hollywood female-centric comedy and audience-repelling art-house eccentricity.
She’s a little bit Eric Rohmer, a little bit Woody Allen (OK, a lot of Woody Allen) and a little bit of second-wave feminist autobiography with an overlay of self-lacerating wit. I’m still inclined to say that her best movie was the merciless 2006 “Friends With Money,” which was disastrously mismarketed as a mainstream comedy, but I won’t argue with those who carry the torch for “Walking and Talking,” her 1996 debut. On first viewing, I conclude that “Enough Said” is irresistible, and demands a second (and third) viewing right away.
Dana Stevens is impressed by the director’s sense of comedic timing:
Holofcener has a trick of ending nearly every scene on a big laugh—a rhythm that some will critique as a sitcom-like tic, though there are often complex dramatic moments embedded in the jokey exchanges. For example, after Eva [Julia Louis-Dreyfus] and Albert [Gandolfini] finally have sex (the run-up to which is both excruciatingly awkward and surprisingly hot), she confesses as they lie naked in bed, “I’m tired of being funny.” “So am I,” he responds. It’s a raw moment of intimacy between two scared but hopeful middle-aged people, and Holofcener just leaves it there for a moment, with admirable delicacy. Then, just as the scene is about to end on a note of tenderness, Eva breaks the mood with a joke: “But you’re not funny.”
That wisecrack works only because the two lovers in Enough Said so clearly value their ability to make each other laugh. The quest to crack up one’s beloved is a crucial aspect of romantic relationships that most movies barely pay lip service to. But Holofcener’s razor-sharp dialogue-–and Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus’ loose but perfectly judged delivery—capture the way that banter and teasing can both build trust between lovers and tear it down.
The Dish 