While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Please give me a few minutes of your time to read my punhilistic review of the indie comedy "Please Give". Well-renowned Independent film director Nicole Holofcener has given us another fine character-driven talky film. Holofcener- regular Catherine Keener stars as Kate, a middle-age owner of a used goods store which she runs with her husband Alex. Alex and Kate have a teenage daughter named Abby who is going thorough the standard adolescent angst. Kate is a giver and has a habit of giving out food and money to the homeless. She is almost like a homeless person's "quasi-groupie"; sort of speak. On the home-front, Kate and Alex would give their right nostrils for their older geriatric neighbor Andra to give herself to heaven or hell, so they can then expand their apartment when the walls come crumbling down. The problem is that Andra is like an infinite android who is ha ha ha ha stayin' alive, stayin' alive; Andra is not the sweetest granny on the block either. Andra's granddaughters Rebecca & Mary look after her with random visits; Sweet Rebecca being more the caretaker and egocentric Mary being more a la Jack Nicholson caretaker in "The Shining". I would give you more subplot points of "Please Give", but I would then be giving you too much information and thereby would ruin the viewing experience of this enjoyable little movie. Holofconer, who also scribed the film, once again excels in writing engaging characters. Her direction was also very sharp. Someone please give this woman an Oscar nomination already! The "Please Give" cast was giving it, giving it, giving it right. The consistent Keener once again shined with her Kate work. Oliver Platt was hilarious as the clever Alex. And the sister act of Rebecca Hall as Rebecca and Amanda Peet as Mary excelled in their astute performances. Hall continues to impress with every role. Ann Morgan Guilbert was grand as the scene-stealer granny Andra. Sarah Steele was not exactly a scene- stealer, but she was very impressive in her first acting performance playing the "craving for $200 jeans" teen Abby. I also enjoyed the bit performances of Thomas Ian Nicholas as Rebecca's vertically-challenged new boyfriend, and of Lois Smith as his grandma. "Please Give" has all the indie film ingredients that gives it cinematic justice. And even though I have exceeded my punmeter in this review by giving you way too many undesired puns, I still do desire that you please give 90 minutes of your time with a "Please Give" experience. I do care if you don't give a ….. so please give it a chance! ***** Excellent

Many will class this independent work a woman's film - and it is true that the writer- director is a woman (New York-born Nicole Holofcener who is sometimes called the female Woody Allen), three of the four main roles are taken by (attractive) women (Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall), and three of the four support roles are filled by women (two very elderly and one very young). But it would be a mistake to pigeon-hole this movie which is full of wryly humorous and insightful observations on the human condition.Set in Holofcener's New York, this is a character-driven movie with minimal plotting. It concerns the occupants of and visitors to a couple of next-door apartments: a middle- aged husband (Oliver Platt) and his do-gooder wife (Keener) who are planning to expand into the accommodation of an aged woman looked after in very different ways by her daughters (Peet and Hall). At the heart of the narrative is the eternal question: what does it mean to be good.

"Please Give" is an insightful multi-character comedy/drama set in the bohemian section of The Big Apple.Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are a married couple who run an antique furniture business, buying pieces from recently deceased elderly people, then re-selling them at exorbitant prices. Kate assuages her guilt over this by handing out money to every panhandler she encounters on the street and by scouring the internet for volunteer opportunities posted on-line. But she still feels like a "ghoul,' waiting for old people to die, then swooping in on their belongings before the body has even had time to turn cold. Meanwhile her husband and business partner, Alex, suffering from a midlife crisis, becomes romantically involved with Mary (Amanda Peet), a beautiful young but coldhearted cosmetologist, whose cranky and cantankerous grandmother (delightfully played by Ann Guilbert, Millie from "The Dick Van Dyke Show") lives right next door to Kate and Alex, who, in true "ghoul" fashion, are planning on buying her place when she dies in order to increase the square footage of their own residence. The remaining characters include Mary's good-hearted sister, Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), a mammogram technician with a nonexistent love life; Eugene (Thomas Ian Nicholas), her wannabe boyfriend; and Eugene's grandmother (Lois Smith from "Twister"), who's more concerned with playing matchmaker for her grandson than with her own cancer diagnosis.Together, these characters form an interesting and colorful tapestry for an urban tale about people who often question their own goodness but who are often reluctant to rectify the behavior that is causing the problem. And there are those, like Mary and her grandmother, who seem almost completely immune to pangs of conscience or to any kind of moral self-reflection at all and see others as existing largely for their own benefit.Yet, all this makes the movie sound far more preachy, scolding and emotionally downbeat than it actually is. In reality, the screenplay by Nicole Holofcner mines rich veins of humor from the quirky nature of the characters and the situations in which they find themselves, and the beautifully calibrated performances, along with Holofcner's subtle and thoughtful direction, greatly enrich the material.

Please Give (2010)A sharp, witty, touching, slice-of-life gem of a movie directed by Nicole Holofcener. It has some of the trappings of an Indie movie, with very ordinary people taking the leads and quirky low budget filming and music to make it undramatic. But the cast is top notch. The leads--there are four of them in a well balanced ensemble--are nothing if not believable. Maybe most impressive as an actress is Rebecca Hall, who played Vicky in "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona," completely transforming herself into an awkward, kindly, thoughtful and slightly whining young woman. Playing her sister is a hardened and unlikable Amanda Peet, who also has a Woody Allen feather in her cap, "Melinda, Melinda."Then there is a moderne era antique store couple, Catherine Keener (a regular in the director's films) and Oliver Platt, a comfortable couple who buy their antiques people who have just had a relative with an apartment full of stuff die. Yes, there is some black humor, hilarious stuff, and there are layers of contemporary New York life with its superficial and materialist angst, and charm. As events compound, usually with conviction, the characters become more rounded and intriguing. And sympathetic. By the end, you feel for everyone, whatever their weird and sometimes selfish cores.If the movie seems like a cross between Sex and the City and Six Feet Under, it's not a surprise--Holofcener has directed episodes from both series. Throw in her early apprenticeship under Woody Allen, and you get the humor as well as the high standards of writing and directing, combined, that Allen inspires. "Please Give" is slight, somehow, in its intentions. It takes a view of life that isn't so strange really, and where nothing all that unusual happens--the weirdness is just a reminder that we all have weirdness in our lives--and it makes it salient. That's the magic overall, lifting everyday traits into the light where they matter. Or matter differently. With a laugh.Don't miss it!