Full disclosure, I'm a rabid fan of writer/director Nicole Holofcener. Her films are never less than fascinating and Lovely and Amazing is one of my favorite movies of the last decade.
I liked her last outing, Friends with Money, but it was perhaps held back by the realities of working with a bankable Hollywood star. I wanted to see Please Give, eventually, but if I hadn't spotted it on instant and added it to the queue who knows when it would've happened.
Shame on me!
Maybe her best film, or close enough not to matter much. Wonderfully written, acted and directed. It spools past with such seeming effortlessness it makes me wonder how so many shitty films get released. How hard can it be to marry interesting characters to an interesting storyline and bring it to life with quality actors and evenhanded direction?
Harder than it looks, I guess.
The drama is understated (dealer in hip used furniture has crisis of faith, family follows suit) but navigates big themes and does them justice without beating anyone over the head. It's informed by acute observation of things American cinema prefers to ignore, as the credit sequence makes explicit with a series of mammograms performed on breasts you'd never find at an SI Swimsuit photoshoot.
But at heart it's a good old fashioned character driven Hollywood drama, funnier and more truthfully accurate than most.
Check it out.
edit:
Here's a good review by Ebert that delves further into the particulars of plot and character.
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