Please Give is a twee dramedy about a young family who live in a fancy building in the West Village. The wife, played by Catherine Keener, carries with her an enormous amount of guilt and is neurotic about always giving money to homeless people and always being super generous with people. She and her husband, played by Oliver Platt, have a teenage daughter, played by Sarah Steele, and a store that sells mid-century modern furniture, which they buy from families of people who have just passed away (another thing for Keener to be guilty about).
They are looking to expand their already-gigantic apartment and take over the one next door, where an old lady lives. She is looked after by her two granddaughters, Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet. Keener, always feeling upset about everything she has and everything she wants, tries to be nice to the old lady, but the lady is totally rude and a pain to deal with. Platt gets into an affair with Peet and feels guilty about it, because he loves his wife and daughter so much.
On the surface, the story is pretty annoying. I don't really care that Keener is always guilty or that she feels like she has to give money (sometimes big money) to street people. I guess there's a joke in there somewhere about urban white guilt, but it comes off as rather shallow and dumb to me.
I feel like the story never totally goes anywhere or does anything interesting. Writer/director Nicole Holofcener makes it a dramedy because it never totally becomes a comedy nor a drama. Much of the story is funny with clever, snappy dialogue, but much of the story is very sad and dark, like the fact that the old woman is a nasty person who nobody in the world likes. I really wish it had been either more funny or more serious and dramatic.
The characters are pretty basic and cliche right out of Central Casting. Aside from Keener, Platt is a fat husband who is bored but ashamed of his desires for another woman; Rebecca Hall is a mousy nerd who has low self-esteem, can't get a date and is a devoted granddaughter; Amanda Peet is a beautiful woman who is able to get rich men to sleep with her, but can't keep them once she has them. They're all a bit too perfect and a bit too predictable.
Meanwhile, Sarah Steele is really great in the role of the daughter. She is embarrassed by her mother's worrying and looking to make an independent life of her own. Rebecca Hall is also very good as the shy younger sister always living in her older sister's shadow. (It's insane to think of Rebecca Hall as mousy or shy, by the way, but she does a great job with it here).
The movie is a bit too neat and tidy and frustratingly writerly. I'm sure the script looks perfect and all the action develops precisely where a textbook would say it should develop. Sadly for me, all of this was a bit too exact, and got in the way of some very nice directing work by Holofcener (she does a nice job with some interesting fade-outs). This is not a bad movie, but it's an annoying one. I think I would hate Keener's character if I met her on the street. Perhaps that's what the film is about - but I found her too annoying here to really enjoy it.
Stars: 2 of 4
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