Movie Review - Please Give

Please Give (2010)

Starring Catherine Keener, Rebecca Hall, Oliver Platt, Anne Guilbert, Sarah Steele, and Amanda Peet

Directed by Nicole Holofcener
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Honestly, I'm not quite sure of the point that writer-director Nicole Holofcener was trying to impart on the audience in her feature Please Give.  I think that she was trying to say something about either personal connections or feeling guilty about things as we age (very Oprah-esque), but the film never quite got there (or, if it did, I didn't really care).  Shockingly, however, despite the lack of an apparent purpose, Please Give was quite an enjoyable ninety minutes.  Mixed in with both the laugh-out-loud and touching moments that are sprinkled throughout, there are actually some realistic characters onscreen, none of whom I found to be the least bit fake...a rarity in film and what makes this flick rise above what I perceive to be a slight lack of focus.

The film focuses on two families.  Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are a married couple with a teenage daughter (Sarah Steele).  They own an antique furniture store and are financially stable.  Emotionally stable?  Not so much...while they're both happy, it's obvious that they're in a rut.  Living right next door to Kate and Alex is Andra (Anne Guilbert), a crotchety ninety-plus year-old lady who is taken care of by her granddaughter Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) with a little bit of assistance from Mary (Amanda Peet), her other granddaughter who's incredibly abrasive and isn't afraid to admit that she's looking forward to her grandmother's death so she can stop wasting time caring for her.  The two families meet up to celebrate Andra's birthday and things begin to unravel a bit.  The nice thing about the unravelling is that Ms. Holofcener never takes things to a point of unbelievability.  The outcomes for each of the six characters above all seem logical.

All of the actors are quite good here and it was lovely to see all six of them really come together and play off of one another at the aforementioned birthday party.  Each character has a unique voice and there's not a bad apple in the bunch.  It's also nice to be able to say that Please Give is truly an ensemble piece with no one stealing anyone else's thunder in scenes.  So, instead of pointing out any particular actors here, I'll simply say that the group as a whole is worth your Netflix streaming time.

Yes, in the end, I think that the writer didn't quite succeed in getting across her thoughts on guilt and love, but Ms. Holofcener almost makes it there and her acting sextet more than makes up for those flaws.

The RyMickey Rating:  B