Another festival favorite, Nicole Holofcener is one of those directors who just comes up with little gems, the most recent example of this being the 2010 movie Please Give, featuring Catherine Keener as a New York City vintage furniture store owner oscillating between acute self-interest and severe guilt. It’s a painfully honest look at the conflict common among upper middle class types who swing back and forth between worrying about the state of the world and poverty and what more they could be doing to make things better, and all the stuff they have to deal with in their own lives. She also wrote and direct the indie hit Friends with Money in 2006. Her films are particularly interested in complicated female protagonists, which is perhaps why she was tapped to direct a couple of episodes of Parks and Recreation.
Continue reading on the next page…