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100Sophisticated comedies have gone out of fashion, largely because Hollywood finds it easier and more profitable to simply gross out moviegoers. But Please Give has real class -- and for that it deserves our gratitude.
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100This gorgeous film, always tender and sometimes dark, is a deeply resonant comic drama that's concerned with nothing less than life, death, love, sex, guilt and the urban logic of mortality.
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100Holofcener's work is often classified as comedy of manners, but at her best she trades in something much more resonant--the comedy of mores. Here she dives into the fascinating matter of why some people impulsively give and others compulsively take, and how people are taught to second-guess and quash their own generous impulses.
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91In Please Give, the sharp-eyed filmmaker sends her vibrant representative out into the world to explore what it means for a woman to be lucky and still feel itchy. The report has the resonant ring of truth.
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91Some people might find it distasteful to make a movie about guilty rich folks who give themselves permission to splurge. Others will rightly appreciate the honesty.
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90I suspect nearly everyone who sees the picture will have a loud opinion about this ending, which is just one way Holofcener works her stealth magic as a filmmaker and storyteller: She doesn't close up shop on her movie until she's made each of us an honorary New Yorker - in other words, a person with a strong stance and something to say.
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90Please Give is an almost perfectly rendered slice of life, buoyant with wonderful performances.
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90With her new film, the poignant and funny Please Give, Holofcener is at the top of her game.
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88The pitch-perfect performances help Holofcener stir up feelings that cut to the heart of what defines an ethical life. There's no movie around right now with a subject more pertinent. It'll hit you hard.
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88The movie is about imperfect characters in a difficult world, who mostly do the best they can under the circumstances, but not always. Do you realize what a revolutionary approach that is for a movie these days?
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88The cast is uniformly spectacular, infusing the characters with nuance and complexity.
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88Sometimes -- and far too rarely -- a film will hit all the right notes, with sharp, original dialogue, brilliant casting and an absorbing story. So caught up in its spell, you dread seeing the credits roll. Please Give is that movie.
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88Holofcener has accrued a rabid, loyal following for her singular brand of observant wit and aching tenderness. Both pour forth in abundance in Please Give, a wry, wistful portrait of contemporary urban manners.
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88Please Give is a moral comedy that feels at times like one of the late Eric Rohmer's deceptively breezy miniatures, or a mid-period Woody Allen movie minus the fussiness.
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85Like all her (Holofcener) movies, Please Give is multitonal, as tenderly sympathetic as it is tough toward all its tortured, even unlikable characters.
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83There are laughs and moments of pain and many instances of embarrassing (and deeply human) behavior throughout, but there's also delicacy and grace.
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80It's guilt that gives life, shape and depth to this uncommonly perceptive film.
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80An indie with real pedigree and smarts, Holofcener's comedy of manners is well-observered and well worth watching.
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It may take some time but Nicole Holofcener's latest effort gradually grows on you. Partly it's her obvious affection for her oddball collection of characters; partly it's the performances of the likes of Keener and Oliver Platt as her wayward husband.
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80Like a finely wrought short story, and it's all but perfect.
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78A stroll with these characters is a refreshing break from from the usual film exercises.
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75A movie as generous, stingy, and biting - and memorable - as its six main characters.
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75The characters are entertainingly contradictory, though in a somewhat predictable way: Nice people aren't honest, and honest people aren't nice.
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75A dramatic comedy that is light on plot but generous in spirit, a leisurely, understated film that underscores the ever-present modern guilt while -- oddly, given the weightiness of that central conceit -- boasting a satisfying buoyancy.
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70Holofcener's plotting can seem casual (many characters, no speeches pointing up the themes, no conventional climaxes), but her dialogue is smart, an oscillating mixture of abrasiveness and balm, of harsh satire and compassionate pullback.
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70It is, for the most part, witty and engrossing.
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70Few American filmmakers create female characters as realistically funny, attractively imperfect and flat-out annoying as does Ms. Holofcener, whose features include "Friends With Money" and "Lovely & Amazing."
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70Keener, so deliciously nasty in Holofcener's "Lovely and Amazing," is no less engaging here in what is, surprisingly, the film's least bitchy role.
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67When the fadeout comes, viewers may feel as unsatisfied with the movie as these characters are with their lives.
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60She has real sympathy--characters that might have been brittle, mockable creations in another writer-director's hands gain resonance here. But the filmmaker also might have very little to say apart from the way guilt enters into life, and then suddenly recedes.
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58Only Rebecca Hall comes through with a genuineness that rises above Holofcener's doodlings. Her scenes with Guilbert resonate because, in the end, Rebecca is the only character in the movie who seems to care about anything other than his or her own – take your pick – bank account, complexion, weight, guilt. In this company, she's practically a saint.
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50Think of Please Give as a finely tuned short story with every glance and gesture full of suggestive meaning. Drama is not high on the agenda here. There is a bit of comedy and, briefly, sexual mischief even though it doesn't look like much fun.
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50Two possible ways of regarding Please Give: It's shallow. Or maybe it's deeply shallow.
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50Though I wish Please Give were a little better, there aren't enough American movies like it.
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25At a time when every penny counts, where do they come up with the money to finance a movie this boring?
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 17 out of 22
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Mixed: 3 out of 22
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Negative: 2 out of 22
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DWillyB9
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alexw9
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ScottB.9