Enough Said

Writer-director Nicole Holofcener has a knack for creating vivid characters whose worlds feel bigger than the movie we're watching. In Enough Said, which is a finely crafted romantic comedy, the romance isn't the only thing going on in the movie. Holofcener wants us to see the myriad relationships of her characters, as well as the many problems, most of which are not clearly resolved, that exist in them.

As Eva, a masseuse whose daughter is about to go off to college, Julia Louis Dreyfus is wonderful. When I saw she was playing the lead in this movie, I thought: Why isn't she in more movies? I've always adored her performances in shows like Seinfeld, Arrested Development and Veep. She's great in Enough Said. Dreyfus has always been able to make use of the full range of her acting abilities, even in sitcoms, but here she's not obliged to be funny all the time. We get to see the vulnerable side to her.

And as her unexpected love interest, Albert, James Gandolfini has the coolness of a Robert De Niro mixed with his own brand of laid-back comedy. Albert's in the same boat as Eva, unhappily counting the days til his daughter moves to New York to study interior design. Their similar circumstances of course contribute to their romance, but (SPOILER), things are complicated by Eva's realization that her latest client, a poet named Marianne, played by the wonderful Catherine Keener, is Albert's ex-wife. And she hasn't exactly been silent about her negative opinion of him.

The writing in Enough Said is clever but wouldn't have worked with just anyone. It's remarkable how much the actors are able to do with it. Holofcener's is the kind of conversational dialogue that can either sound brilliant or puzzling, depending on how it's said. This cast--which also includes the wonderful Toni Collette (as Eva's best friend), and Ben Falcone--knows how to make the comedy effortlessly funny and natural.

As with all of Holofcener's films, the serious grows out of the funny in an organic way. You feel like you're watching something of real life, which is alternately refreshing and uncomfortable. Enough Said has its moments of "eww...is this really happening" cringe-worthiness. But I say this mostly as a compliment to Nicole Holofcener, who is perhaps the best writer of realistic comedy-dramas we have right now. She's an actor's writer (and director), always giving rich material to her performers.

With Tracey Fairaway, Eve Hewson, and Tavi Gevinson. 93 minutes. ★★★

Please Give

Please Give is a movie about the tragedy of existence. If that sounds like hell, that's because it is. Nicole Holofcener, who wrote and directed the movie, is keenly aware that her subject matter is grim and unappealing. She laces each scene with comic undercurrents. They're not throwaways--they're more like hilariously grim reminders that there isn't much value in taking things too seriously, whether it's age, work, or social relationships.

It's set in New York City, a place that seems ideal for capturing the feeling of a lost soul wandering through a sea of other lost souls, invisible in the noise and the quiet desperation. Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt), a husband and wife who buy furniture from the children of dead people, are waiting for their 91-year-old neighbor Andra (Ann Guilbert) to die so they can expand their apartment into hers (which they've already purchased). Andra has two granddaughters, Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and Mary (Amanda Peet). While Rebecca masks her disdain for her grandmother by taking care of her like a dutiful grandchild, Mary is openly hostile toward her grandmother. Andra doesn't give a shit about anything. She's too old to care about maintaining relationships, and her body parts are failing, rapidly decaying her quality of life.

Rebecca is a radiologist who specializes in mammograms. She deals with the beginning of death, the initial shock of bad news. Andra stands (or rather, hobbles) at the thresh-hold of death, waiting to go just as everyone else is waiting for her so they can move on with their lives. Kate works in the aftermath of death. She's got a bleeding heart but can't seem to find a way to deal with it. She keeps giving money to homeless people. And she tries assuaging the guilt she feels (for being some kind of Antiques Roadshow Grim Reaper) by helping the less fortunate, or at least thinking about helping them. She tries visiting with the elderly, then the mentally disabled, but she's all jelly inside and gets overcome by her own sympathy. It's like the sympathy she feels--as well as the correlating sense of helplessness--is the only thing that gives her life meaning. Kate wants to stop feeling guilt, but she isn't willing to really change the things that make her feel guilty (or think about why they do). Moreover, she's unwilling to face the bleak realities of her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, played by Sarah Steele.

Keener's character is just irritating. The things she doesn't seem to be aware of are matched only by her disgustingly patronizing good intentions. Peet's performance is wonderfully vivid as Andra's beautiful elder grandchild, who feels like a loser despite her beautiful features. She's having an affair with Alex for some untenable reason. Her callousness is made to be a point of comic release for us. It's like she says what we're thinking. She vents the inner frustrations of her nicer, shell shocked sister.

The performances make Please Give worth seeing. It has a slightness about it though, as though we will forget what we've seen. The humor--which is deep at the heart of the movie--lets us laugh at the characters' sense of self-seriousness, drawing something much more real out of them. But watching Please Give is also like catching a little glimpse into the lives of real people. Holofcener explored similar stories of frustrated women in Friends With Money. She's making good movies that aren't getting seen by very many people, but you can check out Please Give via netflix's instant streaming feature.

Friends With Money

Jennifer Aniston is a good actress but she seldom seems to get THE part. Usually we see her in a romantic comedy, in which she's clearly comfortable--and likable. But occasionally she gets to demonstrate her dramatic chops, like in this movie, Friends With Money. I found it in the comedy section of the video store, but I thought the categorization misleading. It's one of those movies where you feel like you're being a told a story completely objectively, just watching the lives of four women and their husbands unfold in a small splash of time. Aniston's character, Olivia, is single and has become a maid after quitting a teaching position she hated. Her three friends (played by Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, and Frances McDormand), are all married and financially well-off. Olivia is, in many ways, their pet project. She's the one they're "a little worried about."
This is the kind of movie where conflict resolutions aren't necessarily inevitable, in that it's a movie that tries to be realistic. If you hate that sort of thing, you might not enjoy this, but if you do enjoy it, like I did, you'll find a very clever, honest, sympathetic picture that's about the intricate, unstable, chaotic, and familiar nature of relationships. ★★★