PLEASE GIVE
US, 2010, 90 minutes, Colour.
Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Annemarie Guilbert, Lois Smith, Sarah Steele, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Amy Wright.
Directed by Nicole Holofcener.
Nicole Holfcener has made several comedies, contemporary comedies of American manners, with a range of female characters, their issues, their concerns, the details of their lives (Lovely and Amazing, Friends with Money). Please Give is in the same vein. Its 90 minutes pass quickly, giving the impression that this is a series of light anecdotes. Along with the light touch is a more serious vein of felling bad about the marginalised (socially, physically) but not knowing how a comfortable furnishings shop owner should manage this concern and act on it in practice. And the screenplay is sometimes sharply barbed which has us smiling though we disapprove of some of the characters who utter them.
The cast also sustains interest in the anecdotes, especially the reliable Catherine Keener as Kate, wife and mother (with Oliver Platt doing a relaxed but ambiguous turn though surprising and disappointing himself with some of his behaviour as the husband). Sarah Steele is their self-conscious, bad-skinned and sometimes thick-skinned concerning those in need, fifteen year old daughter. Next door is cantankerous 91 year old Andra, looked after by a shy granddaughter (a charming Rebecca Hall) and barely tolerated by the other granddaughter (Amanda Peet getting lots of the harsh lines).
Please Give won't make many demands. It passes time entertainingly but it is more than a time-passer.
1.A women’s film, women film-makers, characters?
2.New York City, families not living on the sidewalk, apartments, shops? The musical score?
3.The title and the reference to Kate and her life, wanting to donate, wanting to care, her concern? Her feeling – and her inability to explain?
4.A New York comedy of manners, for women’s lives?
5.The strong cast?
6.Kate and her spirit, buying the furniture, selling it, a sense of guilt and making the refund later, her working with her husband, her clashes with Abby? Her giving to people in the street, her treatment of her customers? The various people whose houses she visited, the arguing couple about the value of the furniture, the woman and her dead parent? The plans for expanding the apartment? Neighbours, Andra aged ninety-one, tough? Rebecca and her help? Meals at home? Selling the table to the rival seller and going to his shop and seeing the advanced price? Asking about him? Not suspecting her husband and his infidelity? Abby and her wanting two hundred dollars for jeans? The funeral, the aftermath, the family walking down the street, buying the jeans and Abby happy? Her going to the centre for care, for the elderly, her being sad? The upbeat response of the director? Going to the disabled children’s sports teams, going into the toilet and crying? Not suited to help out in practice?
7.Kate’s husband, his age, life, working with his wife, genial, the domestic sequences in their room, his watching television instead of reading, the plans for the expansion of the apartment, working in the shop, prices? The dinner, flirting with Mary? Going to visit her, the facial, the affair, the mutual ending of it? His shocking himself?
8.Rebecca, her work, the credits sequences, the mammary measurements? Shy, the outing and the computer dating and answering the questionnaire? Her relationship with Mary, looking after their grandmother, the death of their mother? The lady and the possible cancer? Her grandson, Eugene, bringing her? Wanting to match-make, Eugene asking her out, her delight? The group of them going to see the leaves – taking her grandmother, her continual complaining, not looking at the leaves? Mary and the various clashes? Her arrival to find her grandmother dead?
9.Mary, hard, her life, continually tanned, the beauty treatment, her harsh quips? With Kate’s husband, drinking, flirting at the table? Helping Abby with the facial? Going to see her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend, the continual criticism, her muscular back, her being called a loser? Her going to her grandmother, doing the groceries, finding her dead – and then going back to work?
10.Andra, hard, ninety-one, the rinsed hair, the birthday, the cake too dry, the gift and putting it down the chute? Kate and her talking to the superintendent, finding the gift there?
11.The lady with the tests, her life, joy, luck, accepting cancer? Eugene, short, relationship with Rebecca?
12.The humour in the dialogue, the repartee?
13.A film for female sensibilities?
