Please Give

Please Give is one of the most problematic movies I've ever seen. The film is about a couple who experience guilt in different ways. They buy furniture from the relatives of the recently deceased. The relatives are usually distraught and have no idea what to do with all this old furniture, so they sell it off cheap to Kate and Alex. They are played by solid actors: Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt. They have a daughter who wants jeans that cost over two hundred dollars (Sarah Steele). The daughter is also often pissed off at her mother, for Kate gives away a lot of money to make up for her shady line of work, but then won't buy her daughter jeans. Kate and Alex are assholes though, the supposedly clever idea that they give away money to make up for their ill deeds is pretty stupid. For, at the same time as doing this, they are scheming to extend their apartment once the cranky old neighbor dies. She is quite funny and adds a lot of entertainment to the film. The old lady has two granddaughters who look after her played by the exquisite Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet who is the biggest bitch at the movies in 2010. The problem with Please Give is that all of its characters are assholes and that the direction tries to convince us that they may not be. It starts off with an edgy scene of various breasts right in front of the camera that are about to be tested for breast cancer. Is this supposed to be edgy or have some statement behind it? Some of the dialogue here is absolute crap, it assumes to know everything about relationships and then proves it doesn't know jack shit. To be fair, the film is sometimes very entertaining and it brings up a lot of good and interesting topics of conversation. But I think the film is too unlikeable to be good, and it's too ignorant to be admirable. It's a failed effort.
Please Give: ★★