Katherine Keener plays Kate, a Manhattanite wife and mother of a certain age who is facing an unsatisfying life in Nicole Holofcener’s, Please Give. Yeah, this theme is played over and over in Holofcener’s other work Lovely & Amazing, Friends With Money – also starring Keener – but it is because of Keener that the viewer doesn’t feel bored or frustrated with what could be an already played out story. Keener possesses the uncanny ability to portray bitchy with the perfect amount of vulnerability. It’s pretty miraculous and makes her the go-to-actor that she is. Whether she’s playing the author Harper Lee opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote or the Bohemian grandmother girlfriend of Steve Carell in The Forty Year Old Virgin, Keener pulls it off with her delicately balancing emotions.
The incredibly underrated Oliver Platt (The Big C) plays her husband and the scenes the two have together are a master class in acting. They truly react, not act when they are together. It’s just too bad this movie was in theaters for about a second and then quickly disappeared. But the good news is that it’s now available on DVD. Netflix it today.