Please Give (2010)
Please Give(USA) Directed by Nicole Holofcener Written by Nicole Holfcener Starring Catherine Keener; Oliver Platt; Rebecca Hall; Amanda Peet; Sarah Steele; Ann Morgan Guilbert; Thomas Ian Nicholas; Josh Pais; Kevin Corrigan; Sarah Vowell; Rebecca Budig
Please Giveis only Nicole Holofcener’s fourth feature, a surprising fact given this auteur’s unique voice and talent. Starting with her 1996 Sundance darling Walking and Talking(1996), she has continued making small, character driven films based on aspects of her current life (or at least recent personal past). Beyond her obvious talents, what makes Holofcener unique is the simple fact that she is an American woman writing and directing her own films, albeit those on the lower end of the Hollywood budget spectrum.
Holofcener favors ensemble pieces populated by female characters, but her alter ego of choice is indie fave Catherine Keener, who had a career making turn in the director’s debut. Keener has shown up in each of Holofcener’s subsequent films, which include Lovely and Amazing (2001) and Friends with Money(2006). Keener seems to inspire loyalty in her directors as several others of note have used her more than once, including Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight; Full Frontal) Spike Jones/Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich; Into the Wild; Synecdoche New York); and Tom Dicillo (Johnny Suede; Living in Oblivion; Box of Moonlight; The Real Blonde).
Keener’s Kate is a guilt-ridden forty something Manhattanite who co-owns a downtown furniture store specializing in retro chic, mid-20th century design. Married to her business partner Alex (Oliver Platt), one of the main targets of Kate’s obsessiveness is the method by which they replenish their stock - namely, visiting the often clueless grown children of the recently deceased and acquiring their bequeathed furnishings at a low price.
Compounding Kate’s angst is the fact that she and her husband chose, in similar fasion, to purchase elderly next door neighbor Audra’s (Ann Morgan Guilbert - Millie Helper from the old Dick Van Dykeshow) apartment with the idea of knocking down the walls and expanding their living space - a sale that goes into effect upon the woman’s death. The cantankerous Audra is cared for by her grandchildren, sad and lonely radiology technician Rebecca (a purposefully washed out Rebecca Hall) and emotionally frosty, vacuous spa worker Mary (Amanda Peet), and there is a degree of unease between the two families based on the somewhat morbid nature of the deal.
Kate has no problem peeling off bills to the various homeless adults who live in her neighborhood, though she refuses the request of insecure teen daughter Abby (Spanglish’s Sarah Steele) to purchase $200 designer jeans. Kate alternates between making cruel jokes about Audra’s impending death, and sobbing uncontrollably when visiting a local charitable group. The underlining questions regarding Kate’s obvious personal issues (and outward projection) are never fully addressed, but Holofcener is always more focused on the journey than in tying things up in a neat little bow.
Holofcener is also clearly fascinated with questions surrounding wealth and the kind of guilt associated with certain privileged lefties. Her characters enjoy the luxury posessions and status that accompany their financial prosperity, but also constantly muse about their own lives in this regard, regularly making minor social gestures in a shallow attempt to assuage their discomfort.
Female body image is another of Holofcener’s prominent topics, and here we get women struggling with bad skin, a tanning addiction, and even a character (the new girlfriend of the jealous Mary’s ex) called “Big Back”. There is talk of women’s looks in relation to age and weight. At one point Peet’s Mary asks Platt’s Alex how his wife stays so skinny. “She worries a lot,” he says, dryly.
While there is nothing overtly special about Please Give, the acting from the stocked cast is superb, and themes like loneliness, personal duty, and the spirit of charity are visited upon but never confronted directly. Holofcener is satisfied with lightly stepping through the ideas that compel her, allowing her well-drawn characters to speak for themselves.