Giving it all she’s got
An interview with filmmaker Nicole Holofcener

Acclaimed filmmaker Nicole Holofcener has made movies with strong and compelling female characters beginning in 1996 with “Walking and Talking.” “Lovely & Amazing” (2001) and “Friends With Money” (2006) followed. Her latest, “Please Give,” continues the trend. Sisters Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and Mary (Amanda Peet), have a complex relationship, made even more so by the presence of their grandmother Audra (Ann Morgan Guilbert), who raised them following their mother’s suicide. Living next door to Audra are Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt). Kate, who runs a vintage collectibles store with Alex, is having a multi-faceted personal crisis.

Gregg Shapiro: Nicole, Catherine Keener has been in all of your feature-length movies. What is it about Catherine that makes for such chemistry?

Nicole Holofcener: Chemistry — it’s hard to define why you have chemistry with someone. We just hit it off right away. We have the same sense of humor. Make each other laugh. Feel safe with one another, emotionally safe...

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Reel advice: now playing

“The Runaways”
(Apparition)

Biopics continue to be a hit-or-miss proposition, and “The Runaways” is a good case in point. An all-girl (emphasis on “girl,” as the members were in their teens) rock band that played its own instruments and wrote its own songs, The Runaways was formed in the mid-1970s, a time when such a thing was still on the risky side. As the story (director Floria Sigismondi’s screenplay based on Cherie Currie’s book) goes, Southern California girls Joan Jett, nee Larkin (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (a suddenly grown-up Dakota Fanning), who both shared a love of rock music and coloring outside of the lines, were groomed by record producer/songwriter/starmaker Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) to be lead guitarist and vocalist, respectively, in the next big thing.

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Film reviews

“The Joneses”
(Echo Lake)

Keeping up with the Joneses is harder than you think, especially when they are a pre-fab clan planted in an upscale suburban neighborhood by a faceless consumer corporation to “do some damage.” But that’s precisely what happens when the Jones family – father Steven (David Duchovny), mother Kate (Demi Moore), son Mick (Ben Hollingsworth) and daughter Jenn (Amber Head) – moves into one of the biggest houses on a block full of newly constructed mansions.

Under the watchful eye of KC (Lauren Hutton), the family parades around in high-priced duds, drives an array of shiny new Audis, adorns themselves with expensive jewelry and has a home decorated in the latest in design trends, complete with all of the cutting-edge toys and gadgets technology has to offer. All they have to do is maintain the façade (in spite of the fact that Steven and Kate sleep in separate bedrooms and Jenn wants to bed Steven) and get their well-to-do neighbors to take note of their goods and go out and spend, spend, spend.

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At the box office

“Off and Running”
(First Run Features)

Subtitled “An American Coming of Age Story,” Nicole Opper’s documentary provides a unique LGBT twist to the-coming-of-age genre.

The film begins with teenager Avery writing a letter to her birth mother. Raised in a Jewish household by adoptive lesbian mothers Travis and Tova, alongside brother Rafi (and later Samuel Isaiah AKA Zay-zay), Avery’s interest in her birth heritage arose from attending Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, which has a large African-American student population. A good student and a rising track and field star, it took Avery five years to finally write to her birth mother. She was held back by fear of rejection.

After a few months, Avery receives a response from her mother. It is warm and friendly, but distant. In it, Kay answers some of Avery’s questions. But Avery’s experience is different than that of her best friend Jenna (who met her birth mother) and her brother Rafi (who chose not to meet his birth mother, but made a connection with his blood brother and sister).

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