I was sad to see the reviews this movie received after thinking about it all evening....this movie was nearly perfect. Actors were pitch perfect... amanda peet especially. The script couldnt have more portrayed more perfectly New York City living- the characters, the apartment talk, and most importantly the balance between having a stone front and a warm heart. it was a fabulous hilarious and thoughtful movie. well done!… Expand

I don't normally have much use for this type of film, I was left cold by this writer/director's "Friends With Money," but the ensemble performs flawlessly (directed to the height of their known capabilities) with a unique script that really has something to say, is moving and funny as hell. I can give it the highest compliment in that I've been thinking and talking about it all the following day now, and would like to see it again.… Expand

Disappointing movie! The reviews had me hoping for a really good film, but this was dull, depressing, and not really funny.

I'm not sure what this movie is supposed to be about, but it sure is nice sitting through it. Superb performances by the entire cast, but Katherine Keener is a knockout in the lead role.

Sweet, but ultimately boring and inconsequential.

Enjoyable and different, but when it's over you're not quite sure what to make of it.

Very entertaining story. Well directed and acted. Worth the $10 to see on the big screen. My wife and I found ourselves laughing out loud many times.

This movie is a wonderful slice of life piece, with characters that feel real. It is not a pretty, Hollywood-ized version of life but the real thing. And there isn't necessarily a 'point' other than that everyone is complicated, troubled and interesting in their own way, no matter how mundane their life might seem from the outside.

A really great movie - possibly her best. Holofcener is quickly becoming one of my favorite writer/directors. The whole cast is brilliant, and the characters are rich and complex.

What a horrible movie! I am so glad I saw this alone, and didn't inflict the tedium, incoherence, and gratuitous poor taste on a friend. I am a big indie movie fan, and am so disappointed in Keener and Platt for stooping to such a poor movie.

I thought this was a wonderful comedy of manners movie. It was about feeling bad for people with less than us and questioning out moral integrity. It was very well acted from all actors. Good direction and hilarious writing. I laughed out loud several times. And this movie was also surprisingly thought-provoking. Well worth seeing.

This is a pretentious, boring movie. Just isn't as good as ppl are saying. Nothing happens. Leaves no impression whatsoever. Mostly, I just wished I hadn't wasted 2 hours after seeing it.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I wanted to like this film more than I did. I appreciated the diffuse narrative and the fearless performances, especially by the pitch-perfect Keener, but I couldn't help thinking that Holofcener stumbled into Woody Allen's New York, where everyone is neurotic AND wears their neuroses on their sleeves at all times. Thematically, the film is downright clumsy; to question the ethics of commerce, as Keener's character does, is to be overwrought and paralyzed, de-sexed and in need of some serious "retail therapy." In the film's final epiphany, Keener buys her horrible little daughter the $235 jeans she has been angling for throughout the film and everyone gets the warm fuzzies--except for this reviewer, who had an inexplicable urge to take a shower and re-read Das Kapital. Still, kudos for avoiding most Hollywood cliches, which promises greater subtlety in films to come.… Expand

Nicole Holofcener writes and directs Please Give, a tart, touching indie drama about generosity and selfishness. Holofcener (Lovely & Amazing, Friends With Money) explores familiar territory in her latest film, showing the comedy and pathos of haves and have nots in Manhattan. Women's breasts are readied for scanning by mammogram technician Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) in the striking opening scene. Pale, serious Rebecca comforts and assists an unending parade of patients. A compulsive giver, she's not receiving much. Rebecca lives with her elderly grandmother and rarely goes out, not even to see the fall foliage upstate. To her, breasts are neither beautiful nor repulsive, but "tubes that can get infected." Holofcener shows the interplay between two Manhattan families, reflecting America's uneasy balance of wealth and poverty. Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are a wealthy couple that resell contemporary antiques in their city showroom. The two live and work together all day long, an arrangement bound to strain any marriage. Adding to that tension is Kate as she plunks $20 bills into the hand of any homeless person she meets. Opportunities to profit and feel guilty about it abound as Kate and Alex acquire estate furniture bargains from grieving adults. Meanwhile their 15-year-old daughter Abby (refreshing Sarah Steele) begs for a pair of $200 designer jeans. Living next door is 91-year-old Andra (Ann Guilbert, who played nosy neighbor Millie Helper on the Dick Van Dyke Show). In space-hungry Manhattan, Kate and Alex have already purchased Andra's apartment and plan to expand their living space after she dies. Meanwhile they are genuinely polite to the cantankerous neighbor and her granddaughters Rebecca (Hall) and sexpot Mary (Amanda Peet). Peet (Something’s Gotta Give; Martian Child; 2012) portrays Mary as the newest incarnation of needy, needling Andra. She's just as selfish as Rebecca is selfless. Kate and Alex's birthday party for Andra, reluctantly attended by Rebecca and Mary, offers a high point of comic realism. It is here where Alex's mid-life crisis begins to manifest. Several performances delight in this often uncomfortable film. Guilbert delivers pathos along with her barbs. Lois Smith is radiant as wise Mrs. Portman, a patient who befriends Rebecca. Thomas Ian Nicholas plays Mrs. Portman's fresh-faced nephew Eugene. Keener has starred in each of Holofcener's feature films as a tough yet vulnerable woman exploring life's ironies. As Kate, Keener is so edgy that she succeeds in making moviegoers squirm. Spiritual teacher Fredrick Lenz once said, "When you do something for someone else, it’s for you. When you do something for yourself, it’s for someone else." Kate and Rebecca, the two most generous characters in Please Give, finally discover that they are good people who deserve to be happy.… Expand

An extremely pleasant film with fantastic performances, especially from Catherine Keener and Rebecca Hall. The script is funny, bittersweet, smart, and biting. All in all, it's a great little feature from Holofcener.

I'm sure there isn't a writer/director who can do a better job than Holofcener. Each scene, each dialog is taut and funny even when it's tragic. It's a very New York movie and I'm not sure how many jokes and situations non-New Yorkers will get, but Ms. Holofcener is an absolutely amazing talent.

From the director that brought you Lovely & Amazing, Nicole Holofcener's Please Give developed interesting characters and a well-related plot. Charms from both the leads, Oliver Patt & Catherine Keener, helped a lot with their complex characters. Please Give is a simple plot where economy and relationship problems occurs. But the director and writer is so elegant in their story-telling and directing, it is almost impossible to not be interested in Please Give.Going slow at times and acting from supporting roles seems laughable, Please Give still gave a lot without being asked.… Expand

Really interesting movie...Oliver Platt, Kathrine Keener. Great acting, very subtle. It seems to me that the writer actually wrote for an intelligent audience. Go figure.

There seems to be something profoundly disturbing, and achingly modern (in the worst way) to Please Give - for one the dialogue works because it’s so severely cynical, and knowing, and authorial - and tyrannically ironical. I’ve succumbed to the conclusion that sentiment is extinct, and obsolete in the 21st century, yet I’m far from comfortable with it. To call a film irresponsible is laughable, I know - but a smart individual (as I assert myself to be) can’t fall for the canned sentiment and arbitrary guilt of the New York cosmopolitans in this film - who feel to much, or too little, yet have too much. This is spewed out in chunks toward the end of the second act here - with soft piano, and a death we all knew was coming. I’d like to entertain the thought that this film deals with that gnawing, slight, subconscious preoccupation to the space we take up on this planet - and how we are always guilty of something. On the other hand - we have Catherine Keener - easily the most natural performer working today... there’s also the great Lois Smith - the fun Oliver Platt - and the **** Amanda Peet. This film works best as an aside in our lives - as most movies should; a short story in the New Yorker - and nothing more. Let’s not affect airs, as this movie argues, and realize we are maybe better people for it.… Expand

Funny and engaging movie of two worlds colliding after lose.