Review of Please Give (2010) by Drew S — 25 Feb 2011

Disappointing within its own framework, Please Give starts out as a surprisingly funny look at privilege and "need", but the movie completely loses its footing in the second half. The characters are meant to be revealed as universally irritating, but instead they become merely repetitive, and their behavior is completely unrealistic in any context. It isn't a problem of acting, as the cast is on-point, but some of the shit that tumbles out of their mouths is just insipid. I've met some truly heinous New York hipster types in my time, believe you me, but there's no justifying the caricatures that rapidly balloon as Please Give progresses. It's as if Nicole Holofcener started out with some really great ideas for her characters, and instead of exploring or deepening these ideas she just riffs on them over and over until everyone falls apart. This could have been so much more with another draft of the screenplay and a more balanced third act, but in its current form it's just a mawkish, fitfully clever indie doomed to quick obscurity.

(Also disappointing, especially so given that it was written and directed by a woman: Oliver Platt scores Catherine Keener AND Amanda Peet. I'm sorry, what? What is it about Keener that just screams "cast me alongside a really ugly man"?).