Eternally bitter, cynical but never toxic and always with a hint of beautiful humanity, Nicole Holofcener is always a distaff alternative to Woody Allen's neurotic obsessions. Her works, deemed as 'vagina movies', are no less assured, and even surpass the works of her male counterparts; whereas, Allen's works nowadays are consistent in their inconsistency, Holofcener's works organically evolve to correspond to the reality that we live in, and, as response, the people that we become. Her first film, "Walking and Talking" back in 1996 is a thoroughly charming and affable film, with concepts of loneliness, abandonment and feeling lost explored, but the pervading anxiety and bitter humour that have long since been her staple from her second film thereafter, are kept at bay, for most of the time. Her characters continually grow. Now, circa 21st century, and being caustic seems to be a natural trait. Still, Holofcener uses that to great effect; bitterness never overshadows, but merely used as a launching pad to explore the quiet beauty hidden amidst the toxic and the unpleasant.In her fourth film, "Please Give", she tackles capitalism, displaced guilt, physical appearances, infidelity and death amidst a chaotic, arbitrary world that is rather nihilistic, but only in a gentle, breezy, free-wheeling meaninglessness that does not feel like a discourse on an Ingmar Bergman's nothingness, but more akin to Eric Rohmer's affable meandering that is no less understatingly hurtful and quietly emotional.
Set in rumbling New York City, Kathy (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) own a furniture store, set by the couple's practice of buying furnitures at very low prices and put them up with high markups. They are also waiting for the next door neighbour, a bitter, ungrateful old hag, Andra (Ann Guilbert), to die so that they could expand the size of their apartment. In the meantime, Andra's two nieces, Rebecca (Rebecca hall) and Mary (Amanda Peet) are dealing with their own problems: Rebecca is a busybody, working as a mammogram technician, keeping romance and personal life at bay; and Mary, a skin consultant, who continually stalks her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend, and at some point, ends up having an affair with Alex. Amidst all this, Kathy and Alex's daughter, is dealing with her bodily appearance: her weight and acne problems.
"Please Give" sets up this multi-strand storylines via Holofcener's typical free floating, stream-of-conscious fashion that negates the structural device of storytelling, and opts for a presentation of a slice-of-life. The camera adopts an objective point of view, even revelling in arbitrary scenes that seem to never amount to anything, but somehow feel organic to the whole film. And even with this objectivity, it is never unsympathetic, even if most of these characters are unlikeable and even bordering on being nasty.
Indeed, sometimes it's better to start off with the negative to accentuate the positive. With this, Holofcener is able to explore the moral implications of living in a capitalistic society. To what extent does one go to successfully carve out a comfortable life for one's self? Kate's obsession with giving out a lot money to the poor seems irrational, but really an ascetic ideal that she churns out for herself, to get rid of her guilt for her wrong choices in life. It is an inherently self-destructive act, prompted by shame, insecurities, selfishness and self-absorption, that is merely offset by the outer appearance of the act: it is an ostentatiously kind and generous act of giving. Kate's asceticism mirrors Mary's affinity for stalking an unsuspecting woman and having an illicit affair with Alex: the lengths to which one goes to, just to find a name for an undefinable feeling of loneliness and pain. At least, with the daughter, it is called being chubby, and acne-ridden. Wait until she gets older.
All of these characters, just like in any other Holofcener films, feel insignificant; they struggle living in a hostile, unlovable world, and they respond to themselves and to each other in equally hostile, unlovable manner; but there is quiet beauty that is transcendental when one watches Holofcener deviates further more into seemingly random scenes; like seeing an anonymous couple looking for the right furniture in Kathy's store, or Rebecca walking the dog with Kathy's daughter. Like watching an unexpected petal falling off a dying flower, Holofcener's images are delicately evocative, and revelatory in their quietness.
"Please Give" is a very sharp, brutally honest work that is all at once, hilarious, acidic, and always strangely moving, without any need for emotional manipulation or ostentatious dramatic histrionics. See this, not merely as an entertainment, but as an opportunity to bask in its many quiet moments of emotional insights that neither praise nor condemn its characters. Besides, there is Catherine Keener, Holofcener's beloved muse, one of the very few actresses nowadays who can effectively kill someone with merely delivering a cutting remark, and simultaneously still break a heart with pathos for her character.
Kate (Catherine Keener) is a guilt-ridden mother who runs a successful second-hand furniture store in down-town New York with Alex (Oliver Platt), her husband and business partner. They also are feeling that their apartment is too small and plan to knock down a wall when the apartment they own next door becomes vacant. Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert), their strong-willed elderly tenant seems to be planning to stay and Kate and Alex realize they have to wait for her to die. Evicting her has become out of the question. Abby (Sarah Steele) is their 15 year old daughter who has acne and a determination to buy a $235 pair of designer jeans.
Kate and Alex feel that it is awkward not to be friends with their elderly tenant and invite Andra over for a birthday party, along with her two granddaughters, Mary (Amanda Peet) and Rebecca (Rebecca Hall). Andra is crotchety and not that interested in birthday parties or presents. She comes to the party but is ornery and full of snarky comments about the cake and present she receives.
Kate and Alex are also dealing with Abby's teen-age angst. Kate also feels guilt making profits on vintage furniture from estate sales and Alex has guilt issues from a recent fling with Mary.
Overall "Please Give" is profound, full of funny insights on guilt and imperfection."Please Give" comes from the writer/director of "Friends With Money", Nicole Holofcener and while that movie explored themes of being rich and how the wealth is spread around through charity and what they weren't willing to spend money on, this one goes a similar route. "Please Give" explores a series of people who either are in need or have the capacity to give something needed to others and figuring out if they are doing it for the good of the recipient or just to ease their own selfish guilt/pity/sorrow. Most specifically, two granddaughters deal with their rude aging grandmother while her next-door neighbors who have purchased her apartment are technically waiting for her to pass away so they can renovate and the guilt of swooping in afterward begins to get to some of them.
Rebecca Hall plays Rebecca and seems to be the only faultless character of the cast. She works in mammography and tends to her 91 year old grandmother on a daily basis along with caring for her dog and cleaning her apartment. Rebecca is shy and only seems to work for others and takes no time for herself and wants to be the peacekeeper always. The intimacy of her job takes so much out of her that she clams up and stays reserved around others until one patient's son takes a special interest.
Rebecca's sister, Mary played by Amanda Peet puts so much emphasis on her own surface value that she never develops much beneath it. Mary is rude to her grandmother on the excuse that the old woman is mean. Mary seems directionless except for maintaining her tan and trying to find out what is so special about the woman her ex left her for and trying to tear her down to make herself feel better. Amanda Peet is scary talented at being cold and beautiful. Her logic for her behavior toward her grandmother only foreshadows how she herself will be treated in old age since she seems to be on the fast track to that bitterness.
Catherine Keener's character, Kate appears to carry the weight of the suffering of the world on her shoulders. She feels so much guilt, pity, and grief when confronted with death and misfortune that the only way to quell some of that is to give back with money to homeless people on the street and others that she mistakenly assumes to be just for standing around outside bundled up. Kate attempts to volunteer her time for the less fortunate, but the emotion is too much to handle it. She is in a business of buying and reselling antique furniture, but feels so badly for the people whom she buys from that it begins to affect her reasoning and business sense.
Catherine's husband, Alex is played by Oliver Platt sees no problem with the business they run together as he views it unemotionally (It's not personal, it's business) and even gives Kate an out that she can go do other things if she wants and can't handle it here. He is exasperated with her wishy-washyness and stubborn purchase of occasionally worthless pieces because she felt bad for someone. They work well together as partners, but this added stress makes him seek out an escape. He only has a minor role to play in the course of the film as with Holofcener's other films, this one focuses on women, their viewpoint, and their relationships with others.
Their daughter, Abby played by Sarah Steele has her own issues with being a teenager with bad skin and wants to ally herself with beautiful Mary and embrace her ideals. All she yearns for throughout the movie is a pair of $235 jeans and the way she blows up at her mother when they go shopping or walk down the street is cringe-inducing and sadly accurate to high school mood swings. Abby goes so far as to snatch a bill out of the hand of a street person Kate just donated to under the objection that her mother worries more about perfect strangers than the needs of her own family. Uh...That is an interesting discussion point.
Each character goes on a journey and ends in a different place than where they started, but as far as commentary on the subject of charity and giving, it seems we are being left up to our own discussions without a direct moral message for the audience. I was left with mixed feelings about the film and felt it lacked the focus to really drive home the objective.
Read Best Reviews of Please Give (2010) Here
Out of all movie genres, the one I head to first is the independent comedy drama. If it's that kind that also follows a group of characters in interwoven stories, even better. Please Give had Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt, two people who are often in films that I like. So, this movie had lots going for it. In theory. But if I hadn't looked up the writer/director (Nicole Holofcener) in IMDB, I would have thought this film was her first film. Yet, she also did Friends With Money, which I don't remember being so frustrated by. (Don't really remember it much at all, but at least it didn't leave me with a hugely negative memory.)Please Give just seemed off. For a while, I was trying to figure out the point of scenes. It was like Holofcener took some pre-existing film template and pasted scenes over the template at the appropriate places, yet, did not have the content, point, or continuity through scenes you need to have a story that is worth making. So we have some fairly well-to-do people who make a living by buying furniture from the children of recently deceased elderly people and selling it to other well-to-do people who don't mind paying exorbitant prices for, say, 60's kitsch. Keener's character is beginning to have angst over this state of affairs and Platt's character tells her to get out of the business then. Okay, this is a decent enough setup, but it is not developed at a professional level. It is as if Holofcener believes that ANY 90 minutes of film strung together in scenes that cut between characters qualifies as a movie. But it just ain't so. The scenes themselves need to be interesting and/or funny or SOMETHING and they need to lead somewhere. If I want a story that has very little point I could film my family from, say, 6:15 p.m. to 6:20 p.m., go over to my neighbor's family and film them from 6:20-6:25, and do this with three of my neighbors over a few days until I have 90 minutes of film and then just end the movie. Please Give accomplishes almost this little. Holofcener had SOME kind of idea, something about the angst some people with money have, but she just didn't know how to make it add up to something.
All of the actors do a decent enough job, it's just that they really got sucked into a project that wasn't quite ready for prime time.
Also starring: A likable Rebecca Hall, sneaky Amanda Peet, cute Sarah Steele, unusual Thomas Ian Nicholas, and effective Lois Smith.
2 stars
Want Please Give (2010) Discount?
This is another movie which has gained a lot of acclaim in 2010. A film about New York, I think would appeal mostly to people living in the big cities but should not prevent you from enjoying it. It deals with six principal characters for most of the movie and their interactions.Oliver Platt and Catherine Keener are antique art and furniture dealers. They somehow manage to sell furniture, mostly antiques with the help of the living relatives of dead people. Their marriage is great but somehow they have become friends instead of lovers. Platt is okay at with the ethics of the business but Keener is troubled by it, so much that she is forever trying to make amends to get rid of her guilt. They have a daughter who is going through a teenage phase in her life. They had recently purchased an apartment in the building that they have lived in for many years but the only problem is that it is occupied by a woman and her two nieces, who care for her. Over the course of a get together with these people, Platt and Amanda Peet, one of the nieces bond and have an extramarital affair. That really is the gist of the film, and may not appear interesting to many people, but trust me it is. I feel that the director did such a fantastic job in bringing this film from paper to film, that you just have to see it to appreciate. It was a Woody Allen film vibe in this for me, four stars. 11/9/10
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