Please Give

This is a film that is difficult to review. In that I'm about to tell you what
happens in it, and you're going to think "well, that sounds crap." But it
really isn't.

So, on with the plot. There are two families. One is a a man, a woman and their
daughter. They are pretty wealthy New Yorkers, they have a business where they
do house clearences, and sell the furniture at a fat markup as modern antiques
to monied hipsters. The woman feels pretty guilty about this. The man doesn't.
The daughter is a bit self-obsessed, because she's a pretty normal teenager.

The other family is an old lady and her two grown up granddaughters, who come
by and look after her. The other family live next door, and have bought the old
woman's flat; she gets to live there until she dies, then afterwards, they can
knock through and have a really big apartment. One of the granddaughters is
lovely and selfless, looking after her grandmother, the other is more in it for
herself, though as the grandmother is a pretty horrible woman, you can see why.

Aaanyway. This is a plot-light, character-heavy slice of life, as the two
families kind of rub along. The mother is guilty about being wealthy, and tries
to assuage her guilt by donating money to homeless people in the street, and
attempting to find a charity to volunteer in; the father is feeling his age,
and starts an affair with one of the granddaughters, the other granddaughter
tries to spread her wings and get a life of her own, the old lady is basically
just crabby with everyone, the teenaged kid basically just tries to deal with
being a teenager. No major drama. Lots of minor drama. It's not all building to
some terrible conclusion, it's just a slice of life.

Thing is, it's very good. It's well acted. We've got Catherine Keener as the
mother, desperately seeking some kind of meaning to her life. Oliver Platt
feeling himself becoming old and trying to grab on to his youth. Rebecca Hall
quietly trying to find a life outside being a carer, and feeling guilty about
it. Amanda Peet being a beautiful girl who's very afraid that as she approaches
40, her looks won't carry her anymore. These are all great, underplayed,
intertwined performances. The plot's not really going anyplace, but that's
hardly the point. This is everyday life, or the uptown New York equivalent, and
it's the characters who count.

I've heard it said that this is the week where films for women are air-dropped
into the cinema to attract the non-World-Cup audience. I'm just glad that in
between the steaming piles of Sex And The City, there's some gems like this.

(Oh, and I'm glad to see Oliver Platt looking well. I saw him about a year ago,
and he looked just about to die of lard poisoning.)