Social Salad
Guilt, humor and family life: Catherine Keener stars in Nicole Holofcener's PLEASE GIVE, in Competition at the Berlinale.
PLEASE GIVE
In PLEASE GIVE (USA), directed by Nicole Holofcener, everything happens within an apparently familiar circle. The film shows characters dealing with hypocrisy, guiltiness and awkwardness and is like a transposition of real life to cinema. One might quickly recognise oneself in this film: the characters’ lives may seem different from ours, and yet we feel connected to them.
Two sisters, Rebecca and Mary (respectively Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet), must care for their crotchety elderly grandmother. Next door, a couple, Alex and Kate (Oliver Platt and Catherine Keener), have to deal with the caprice of their 15-year-old daughter Abby (Sarah Steele). Also Alex is cheating on Kate although she doesn’t know it. This is a real family drama, but Nicole Holofcener turns it into to a comedy (with some exaggeration).
Kate’s business is selling – expensively – furniture she gets very cheap. On her way back home after every business day, she gives money to a beggar on the street. She seems to be asking for forgiveness by doing charity. But this frustrates her daughter. The director shoots the quotidian life in an apartment to reveal how hard and complicated family life can be, and also how useful and important it is. The cast conveys that beautifully.
The grandmother, as played by Ann Morgan Guilbert, is realistically funny and annoying. The young people are trying to live their dream, while the couple is facing the infidelity – real social salad. The death of the grandmother and Alex’s decision to stop cheating may lead to the message of the film: there is always an end to everything.
The panoramic shooting of the film shows how different people approach life. For instance at one point, two young characters and two older ones travel from the city to the countryside to see the changing leaves. Their conversation on the way shows how they think, about each other and about life. The beautiful landscape symbolises the beauty of life. On the other hand, the director tries to point out how open Mary is to life and how her grandmother is closed to it. Mary is awed by the beautiful landscape while her grandmother refuses to contemplate it.
Unfortunately, although the director shows certain aspects of real life, she fails to draw a deeply meaningful conclusion. But overall the quality of the storytelling, the movie’s structure, and its lifelike qualities make this comedy enjoyable and memorable.
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