"Please Give" (2010, film)

[Bob Pr.]

"PLEASE GIVE" 90 minutes; color; rated "R" for some sexual content & nudity. Niclole Holofcener director and writer.

This is an entertaining 'slice of life'** view of the intertwined lives of an upper middle class New York City family, their elderly neighbor (Andra), and her two granddaughters who give her some care. The family and 91 year old Andra live in a high rise of condominium apartments where the couple have already bought Andra's apartment and are eager to tear out the separating walls, remodel, and make a much more spacious and comfortable home -- as soon as she dies.

Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (OliverPlatt) are a married couple raising their difficult 15 year old Abby (Sarah Steele). They make a very comfortable living visiting the surviving relatives of people recently deceased ("dead peoples' kids"), buying just the top quality designer furniture and decorator items at very low prices that they very profitably resell in their trendy boutique shop -- it specializes in mid-20th century modernism (e.g., Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chairs, Eames' tables, etc.).

Central issues in the film are death, guilt (&/or the lack of it), and these six characters each finding their own balance between self-indulgence and self-fulfillment: Kate and Alex make their good income as modern day grave robbers or, as some might say, recyclers. Kate feels a continuing sense of guilt at paying the survivors $500 for a table they resell for $5,000 -- but outrage when she finds their competitor in the same era of boutique furniture has bought it from them and then resold it for $7,500. She attempts to assuage her continual sense of guilt by handing out food, or $5, $10, $20 bills to homeless people she sees on the street. This (her giving) outrages her daughter, Abby, who wants a $200 pair of jeans that Kate won't buy for her. As much as Abby wants the jeans, Kate and her family want their neighbor, Andra (Ann Guilbert), to die. Kate's giving doesn't sufficiently lessen her guilt at profiting from her lucrative business so she explores volunteer opportunities with the elderly, with the developmentally disabled, but each encounter leaves her in tears at the needs of these people.

Andra's caretaking grand-daughters are Mary (Amanda Peete) and Rebecca (Rebecca Hall); their mother died when Rebecca, the youngest, was 15 and Andra raised them. Andra is a self-centered, never grateful or gracious bitch whose own needs and tastes control all her responses, never giving anyone a kind word for the sake of kindness. Mary, the conventionally prettier of the two girls, works in a beauty salon giving facial massages (& sometimes other benefits); she's also self-centered and uses her physical attractiveness to meet much of her needs. With a few drinks in her, Mary speaks her thoughts without censoring, somewhat as Grandma Andra does without ever drinking wine. Rebecca works in a medical office giving mammograms. She's the one person in the film who's most centered, most admirable in her values, choices and behaviors. Mary's as impatient as Kate and Alex for Grandma to die and refuses to alter any of her own behavior to cater to any of Andra's wishes; Rebecca's much more giving and forgiving.

I'm indebted to the British reviewer who wrote that "Please Give" demonstrates the ways people balance their desires for self-indulgence vs. self-fulfillment; that captures much of its essence. Several reviewers comment that Nicole Holofcener's films, as this one, define women in their own terms rather than only in their relationship to men. This is the only film of hers I've seen but it's certainly true of this one.

Many reviews of the film describe it as either a comedy, a bleak comedy, a dark comedy, etc., with excellent repartee. The theater in which we saw "Please Give" had such a fuzzy sound system that I understood maybe only half the dialogue. IMO, it's well worth seeing again -- when with better sound -- because it explores the different ways people deal with very significant life issues.

Roger Ebert gives it 3½ of 4 stars and said, "The movie is about imperfect characters in a difficult world, who mostly do the best they can under the circumstances, but not always."

Definitely not a traditional comedy or happy ending film with all loose ends comfortably resolved.

I'll give it 8 of 10 stars on a first viewing.

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**'slice of life' vs. conventional narrative, MY VIEW: In conventional narrative, there's the introduction of characters, the arrival of a problem or crisis, their ways of wrestling with it, and the (usually) successful conclusion.

In 'slice of life' dramas (films or stories) one drops in, as it were, to ongoing relationships and lives, witnesses their dealing with life, and then drops out with neither a hint or hope that all is solved or that the future will be any different than what has been portrayed.