Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are a longtime couple who run a relatively successful furniture store, which they stock by visiting various estate sales of recently deceased individuals. Alex sees very little problem in profiting off property that no one wanted anymore, but Kate is more reluctant, especially since they intentionally don’t disclose how much these pieces are worth, and also refuse to divulge their source when curious customers question them. As a result, Kate does her best to counterbalance this poor behaviour through volunteering for a variety of charities, none of them working since she becomes too emotional when presented with genuine human suffering. Not even her attempts to help the homeless by offering them some leftovers or some spare change always work, since her social ineptitude often puts her in awkward situations. The couple have recently bought the apartment next door to them, which is currently occupied by the elderly Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert), and her granddaughter, Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), with the agreement being that Andra may stay in the apartment unlike she passes away, which is the cause of a lot of tension between the socially awkward Kate and the stern Rebecca, who does her best to see the good side of humanity, but can easily spot inauthenticity from several miles away, especially when enquiries to her grandmother’s health ring less as genuine concerns and more like well-placed interrogations by the people who stand to profit off her impending death. Yet, over time the neighbours begin to realize that it’s better to get to know one another than to reside in hostility – and while it’s not always easy, they do their best to show generosity to each other, since they know that no one benefits from hostility, and that making a change can sometimes begin quite literally at home.

No one makes unlikable people appear endearing quite like Nicole Holofcener, who has essentially built a career out of small independent comedies that look at the lives of some really strange characters. Her approach to her stories, which focus on close-knit groups of coastal elites trying their best to make it through a world that is hostile precisely because of people like them has resulted in a few absolute masterpieces, as well as some other films that are quite flawed, but still have merits. Please Give occurs somewhere in between – it’s one of the director’s more compelling accounts of humanity, quite literally breaking down our inherent quirks, as reflected in her characters, but falls slightly short of achieving the massive acclaim that some of her other films effortlessly reached without much effort. However, as we’ve undoubtedly come to expect from Holofcener, this film remains a masterful account of the smallest details that make life so interesting – and featuring nearly all of the director’s most notable qualities (almost to the point where a more cynical perspective might accuse Holofcener of self-parody, which may not be entirely untrue, since she seemed to be actively engaging with the social critiques she made in previous films), as well as an unforgettable cast that feels genuine to the director’s world, Please Give is a wonderful film that wears its heart on its sleeve, and never avoids having some serious discussions, often framed through the lens of acerbic but well-meaning comedy, which gives this film, like many of her others, a distinctive tone that is difficult to match, even though many imitators have done their best to capture this same kind of independent magic.

Holofcener’s films are often very cynical – even her most uplifting productions, such as Enough Said and Lovely & Amazing only reach their inevitable happy endings after a considerable amount of travail, each step being more complicated than the last. One would think this is a flaw, or at least a suggestion that the director is a one-trick pony – however, as she’s shown quite consistently, it’s not how you characterize the people in your film, but rather what you do with them. There’s something of a shared world that occurs between Holofcener’s films, which is almost identical to our own, but is layered with a slight sheen of misanthropy, at least a lot more than usual. It could be either that many of her films are set on the mean streets of the Upper West Side in New York City, or the fact that the director doesn’t necessarily gravitate towards particularly likeable characters. However, this doesn’t stop Holofcener from actively constructing these complex individuals in such a way that we can’t help but be captivated by them, even when they’re on their worst behaviour. Please Give actively looks at this concept through the quartet of main characters – they’re all hard-working individuals that see the world vastly differently, but share the same quality of doing whatever they can to get ahead, whether it be severely underpaying the grieving families of recently-deceased people in order to get their furniture, or simply stalking the beloved of an ex-lover to understand why the relationship ended in the first place. It’s a truly sarcastic and bitterly caustic film that bears all the traits of a morality tale, but instead of a lesson being learned at the end, the characters just find themselves in increasingly awkward situations, questioning whether the decisions they made to end up there were truly worth it, or if they should just avoid getting invested in the lives of other in the future.

Yet, beneath these moments of outward cynicism is a truly enchanting film that has an abundance of optimism, even when it is at its most bleak, which is exactly the method Holofcener takes when telling these stories, misleading us into thinking these despicable characters are only going to sink further into their poor behaviour, rather than take any long-lasting steps to change their ways (and unlike the main character, merely volunteering to soothe a guilty conscience doesn’t quite count towards improvement). There’s a genuine compassion embedded in Please Give, and while it might only manifest towards the end, when the characters’ individual acts of selfishness slowly begin to backfire, it’s very clear and prevents the film from falling apart entirely. Holofcener carries a lot of genuine empathy, which makes her typical approach to portraying her characters as inherently unlikeable at the outset so difficult – it’s as if the audience is dared to form an emotional connection to people that are so clearly void of redeeming qualities, only to be rewarded by the realization at the end that, despite conduct that is often beyond unbecoming, they are capable of changing in some small but significant ways. The story is obviously helped along massively by the cast, with Holofcener working with a few actors that could easily bring out both the good and bad in these characters, such as her regular collaborator Catherine Keener (who is perhaps turning in her best performance under Holofcener’s direction), Oliver Platt and Rebecca Hall, who is perhaps the only character in the film that genuinely strives to be a good person, in both intention and practice. The writing services the actors exceptionally well, and they in turn bring out the inner depths in these characters that didn’t necessarily exist on the page, which is always one of the great joys of seeing Holofcener’s work, since there is such an incredible balance between the two, making for thoroughly riveting cinema.

Please Give is a film that isn’t necessarily obscure, but it’s not well-remembered, since it doesn’t have the raw energy of Holofcener’s previous films, nor the unique qualities of her later ones – but it’s far from a minor work, and could be one of her most striking, especially in how it navigates some challenging situations with grace, poignancy and honesty, while remaining as funny and offbeat as all of the director’s work. Finding the balance between comedy and drama is just as profound as the blend of sardonic cynicism and warmhearted humour that defines most of the director’s work, and throughout Please Give, a film built on questioning the root of compassion, and whether we are generous by nature, or are rather selectively so as a means to pacify the feelings of guilt from a hedonistic existence. Only someone with the full-bodied confidence in her own narrative abilities like Holofcener could take such a deep existential discussion and weave it into a hilarious comedy-of-manners that is as funny as it is insightful. It doesn’t always land on every joke, and some of the emotional moments can come across quite heavy-handed – but it all comes together beautifully and forms a film that reminds us of the undeniable merits of looking beyond our own position, and realizing that there’s an entire world out there, and that while we may not need to pledge our entire existence to helping others, a loving word or unexpected gesture of kindness can go a very long way to changing our perception, both of the world around us, and most importantly of ourselves, with our own spiritual and emotional wellbeing remaining just as paramount in a world as cutthroat as the one many experience.