Two of my favorite directors, who happen to be awesome women, premiered their new films at Sundance: Nicole Holofcener screened Please Give and Lisa Cholodenko debuted The Kids Are All Right.
• Catherine Keener and Oliver Plattat in Please Give. Photo taken by Piotr Redlinksi © 2008, Property of Sony Pictures Classics. •
• The whole gang sitting down for lunch in The Kids Are All Right. Photo taken by Suzanne Tenner and courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival. •
Holofcener writes and directs such amazingly complex female and characters, and Please Give is no exception! Catherine Keener is at her best with the witty script and talented supporting cast (Amanda Peet, Rebecca Hall, Sarah Steeleat, Ann Guilbert, and Oliver Plattat). Keener and Plattat are a married couple waiting for their elderly next door neighbor (Guilbert) to die so they can buy her apartment. As they come to know their curmudgeonly neighbor’s granddaughters (Peet and Hall), life becomes increasingly complicated. I was mildly disappointed by Please Give. While I enjoyed the film, it didn’t live up to Holofcener’s last film, Friends With Money. Years after first seeing Friends With Money, I still think about the film. Please Give didn’t just resonate in the same way.
Like Holofcener, Cholodenko creates some of the best female characters around! Her latest film The Kids Are All Right was one of my favorite films of the festival! In the course of 104 minutes, I laughed, cried, and then laughed some more. Annette Benning and Julianne Moore play a lesbian couple whose teenage children find their sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo). Benning and Moore have great chemistry as a middle-aged couple threatened and confused by Ruffalo’s introduction into their lives. Cholodenko’s script and direction perfectly capture the cultural zeitgeist! The Kids Are All Right is absolutely charming!
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