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R W -> RE: Please Give (24/6/2010 7:47:56 PM)
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Director/Screenwriter: Nicole Holofcener
Starring: Catherine Keener, Rebecca Hall, Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet, Sarah Steele
Synopsis
In New York City, Kate (Keener) and his husband Alex gets involved into the lives of two granddaughters (Hall and Peet) of the elderly woman who lives in the apartment the couple owns.
Review
What is the appeal of miserable people in films? Is it that they're so mopey and difficult with each other that we find something funny about them? This seems to be the case for Nicole Holofcener, whose latest feature is about people with such dysfunctionality and high comedy values.
As someone who is unfamilar with the director's work (although she directed a number of episodes of the horror that is Sex and the City), seeing Please Give reminded me of the old Woody Allen films from the 70s, in which they were about New Yorkers going through real-life situations and a sense of humour comes out of those problems. From watching this, it clearly shows Holofcener has a good ear for dialogue, which is somewhat snappy and natural.
As well as displaying scenes of humour (such as Kate's daughter covers the pimple on her nose by wearing ladies' underwear on her head), there is a clerverness towards the family dynamics, in which despite the fact that Kate and Alex are a married couple, they think more like a pair of business partners with the lack of any special bond between them. This aspect is also reflected on the sisterhood of the two granddaughters who do not have anything in common and yet stick with one another despite the differences.
If there is any criticism, it would be that the message of the film isn't entirely clear as it doesn't know what it's trying to say. Also, Holofcener introduces a subplot which includes Rebecca (Hall) goes out on a date with the grandson of one of her patients. This subplot seems to be a way to expand Rebecca's journey, but feels like a quick add-on and clearly the film is about the early stages of her friendship with Kate, as well as the difficult life she has to share with her cold-hearted sister and their awkward grandmother.
On her fourth collaboration with Holofcener, Catherine Keener just dominates the screen as she not only achieves at playing the wife of a sly individual and the mother of a rude daughter, she also succeeds at being a woman with so much to give and yet holds a lot of guilt. As I previously said about a sly individual in the form of Oliver Platt who gets all the best laughs. As for the two sisters, Rebecca Hall is terrific as the somewhat socially-awkward nurse who we sympathise with the most, while the other sister Amanda Peet does a fine job at playing a cold-hearted female who we can't sympathise with.
Verdict
On a performance level, everyone is top form, most partcularly Keener and Hall; while Nicole Holefcener is a talent at doing funny-peculiar rather than funny-ha-ha.
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