Writer director Nicole Holofcener is the gift that keeps on giving. Consider her work, all of which features the gifts of Catherine Keener: "Walking and Talking," " Lovely and Amazing" and the wonderful "Friends With Money." If you're a Keener fan, welcome home. Happiness is a thing called Keener.
In "Please Give," "we get a modern Manhattan family, contemporary cave dwellers who live their daily lives walking through, around and over the urban detritus of the city that never sleeps. Watching them endure the, rich but brutal charms of the metropolis, it's no surprise that this group of friends live for the autumn, when, for one day, they can all drive up north to watch the leaves turn. Think Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day."
watches-K The movie starts with a shocking and hilarious musical montage of women's breasts, as they are being pressed into the cold plates of the X-ray machine. It runs through with a wonderful " No Shoes," by the Roche Sisters.
This, cold green walled, scary place is where one of our primary characters works.
Kate (Keener) and Alex (the deliciously roly poly Oliver Platt) live in one of those spacious kennels for humans, where the constant claustrophobic hum seems not to bother them at all.
Here on the upper East Side, the seemingly happy couple enjoy a nice apartment with a view and also own the apartment next door, now indwelled by a cranky, rude and hilarious old lady (Ann Guilbert, a survivor of the old "Show of Shows.")
There is a waiting game here, one played out all over the island of Manhattan by young moderns with money. When the old timers die off, the new kids rip down the walls and enlarge their lives.
Kate and Alex are in this game with the ancient Andra, and patiently await the day when the coffin goes out and the walls come down. Kate and Alex make a comfortable living off the deceased and near Cheap Jordan Shoes deceased. They go around and buy up the old furniture from the kids and grandkids of the dead. It turns out that there is a big, rich market for this stuff, especially the odds and ends of the '50s. "We buy dead people's stuff," they whisper to friends.
Kate and Alex sell this in their posh little shop, angling with other dealers to grab the latest kitsch.
Let me tell you a few things that are important here. Kate is a bleeding heart. She enjoys the big money from their work, but cries when people die. Her guilt over reaping the lifelong accumulations of the ancients, plays out on the street as she walks her dog with cynical, unhappy teenster Abby (Sarah Steele.) Steele is picture perfect in the role.
Kate hands out cash along the streets to the homeless in ever growing amounts. First it's a $5 and a $10 and eventually, $20s. This infuriates Abby, who's dealing with zits and who can't get her mom to shell out $250 for designer jeans. Later, of course, the homeless, smelling a fab deal, start staking out the apartment.
There is more, and this is where the player list blooms with fresh color. Old Andra (Nana) has two granddaughters who visit her daily for food and med runs. One is the sweet, attentive Rebecca (Rebecca Hall.) Her sister Mary (an unusually crisp edged Amanda Peet), who really can't wait for Nana to take the big dirt nap, is a cynical, impatient, unhappy and bored facial and massage worker.
A dinner party, given by the ever guiltier Kate to celebrate neighbor Nana's 98 birthday, brings all the players together and provides a playing field for writer Holofcener's edg
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