Please Give 2010

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: In its casual, disarming way, it's as deep and as grand a film as you'll find Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Nicole Holofcener, who writes the most interesting female characters in the movies, delivers another dazzling role to her muse, Catherine Keener, in Please Give, a delightfully dry dramedy about guilt. Read more

A.O. Scott, At the Movies: Brutally honest about the way people behave, and often devastatingly funny in its observations. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: An engagingly high-strung comedy about lack of empathy and the gnawing guilt that can attend it. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: This 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. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Nicole Holofcener's lovely Please Give is a small, modest movie, full of the sort of characters we might know, or be. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Some 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. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Please Give is an almost perfectly rendered slice of life, buoyant with wonderful performances. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Please 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. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: This is one of those rare movies that made me want to thank the person who did it. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Only Rebecca Hall comes through with a genuineness that rises above Holofcener's doodlings. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Nicole Holofcener is frequently lauded for writing vivid female characters, but such praise doesn't really do justice to her full game. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Happily, the joy outweighs the guilt. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Keener has become Holofcener's artistic alter ego. In 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. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: With her new film, the poignant and funny Please Give, Holofcener is at the top of her game. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: While Please Give is a film about conscience, it's also slyly funny, with piercing moments of insight and warmth. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Life-goes-on movies usually don't electrify the senses, but this one stimulates moral imagination. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's a tricky kind of social satire, its possibly cloying self-absorption cut only by some winningly awkward characters. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Such fine-tuned observation requires the ideal interpreter. Keener has always been Holofcener's muse, and once again offers the sort of fully crafted portrait that reminds us how shallow most movies really are. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Two possible ways of regarding Please Give: It's shallow. Or maybe it's deeply shallow. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: At a time when every penny counts, where do they come up with the money to finance a movie this boring? Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Some filmmakers make movies that hold up a mirror to nature. Nicole Holofcener makes seriocomedies that hold up a magnifying glass to human nature. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: One of the best movies of the year so far. An insightful, darkly funny and multi-layered character study about class and family. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The 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? Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: There's no movie around right now with a subject more pertinent. It'll hit you hard. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: An edgy, somber, beautifully written Manhattan fable of guilt, shame, infidelity, death and real estate. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Far from challenging, the film consoles the complacent, saying basically that you can do whatever you want, so long as you feel (or pretend to feel) a little guilty about it. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Holofcener hasn't made a great movie yet, but she hasn't created any bad ones, and her gentle humanism is to be cherished. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: In a Holofcener film, the usual rules of screenwriting do not apply, which lends her work a lifelike quality that's particularly refreshing in this era of formulaic remakes and sequels. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Please Give is a series of such set-piece scenes, a breezy, though not negligible, exploration of the contest between avarice and empathy. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Yet another ramble through the tiny world of the affluent and the idle, a particular fascination of Holofcener's. The only difference this time is the increased emphasis on morbidity. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Please Give is Holofcener's best movie to date. The slender plot presents itself without fuss, a slice of Manhattan life, a la Woody Allen's early, most engaging work. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: Holofcener's biggest ally against nauseating self-pity is Keener, her screen alter ego. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: [Holofcener] has real sympathy -- characters that might have been brittle, mockable creations in another writer-director's hands gain resonance here. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Sometimes -- 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. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Like Holofcener's previous pictures, Please Give derives its narrative energy less from a series of plotted incidents than from its keenly observed interplay of clashing personality tics and worldviews. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Holofcener's humorous interest in yupscale entitlem.ent and its discontents mark her as a descendant of Woody Allen Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Please Give is one of those movies that can be enjoyed simply for its funny portraits of human foibles and fumbling grasps at intimacy -- but it's also deceivingly profound. Read more