PLEASE GIVE (2010) (***1/2)

Nicole Holofcener, who made the wonderful WALKING & TALKING and LOVELY & AMAZING, is a writer who understands people and knows precisely how to show an audience these people. Particularly she knows how to write women characters. They act like women and more importantly they feel like women. And by that I mean they feel a range of emotions.

Kate (Catherine Keener, LOVELY & AMAZING) and her husband Alex (Oliver Platt, DIGGSTOWN) run a vintage furniture shop in New York City. They buy their product from the children of the recently deceased. Kate feels guilty for everything. She’s the kind of person who looks for homeless people to give money to. They have bought the apartment of the old woman Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert, GRUMPIER OLD MEN) next door, giving her the right to stay there until she passes.

Andra has outgrown lies and holding her tongue. She’s as direct as current. She’s cared for by her granddaughters Rebecca (Rebecca Hall, VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA) and Mary (Amanda Peet, CHANGING LANES). Rebecca is a sweet mammogram technician. She gets strange vibes from Kate and Alex that they’re just counting the days until they can expand their place. When the couple invites them over, Mary wants to know their plans for her grandmother’s apartment. So asks as if her grandmother isn't even sitting in the room. She is as direct as Andra and completely insensitive toward the old woman who raised her.

Kate and Alex have a teenage daughter named Abby (Sarah Steele, SPANGLISH), who is self-conscious about her acne and wants nothing more than a pair of expensive jeans. She looks up to Mary for her directness and beauty. They have so much in common; they hate the same things in other human beings.

Kate and Rebecca are mirror opposites of Alex and Mary. Kate carries the world on her shoulders and nothing appeases her guilt. She is often consumed with emotion over just seeing people who have it worse than her. Rebecca makes apologies for her grandmother's rudeness. She worries about the women she tests. She describes breasts as balls of potential danger. Alex sleepwalks through life. He likes Howard Stern and thinks about his business in this way — if I don't do it, someone else will. Mary is stalking the girlfriend of her ex-boyfriend. She nitpicks everything about her. The world is just full of liars and she's just honest, because if she wasn't she'd be a hypocrite. But as flawed as they might be, Holofcener finds the humanity in them and the humor comes from us recognizing it.

Holofcener is dealing with characters that are trying to find happiness… or at least contentment. There are characters that are giving and others that are selfish and neither is really happy. Holofcener finds a perfect note to end on. It transforms the mundane into something quite poignant. That's the point.