'Please Give' opens Friday, 'Girl with Dragon Tattoo' continues at Ross

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Kate (played by Catherine Keener) has a lot on her mind. There's the ethics problem of buying furniture on the cheap at estate sales and marking it up at her trendy Manhattan store (and how much markup can she get away with?). There's the materialism problem of not wanting her teen-age daughter (Sarah Steele) to want the expensive things that Kate wants. There's the problem of sharing a partnership in parenting, business, and life with her husband Alex (Oliver Platt) but sensing doubt nibbling at the foundations. And there's Kate's free-floating 21st century malaise -- the problem of how to live well and be a good person when poverty, homelessness, and sadness are always right outside the door. Plus, there's the neighbors: cranky, elderly Andra (Ann Guilbert) and the two granddaughters who look after her (Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet).

As Kate, Alex, and Abby interact with the people next door, with each other, and with their New York surroundings, a complex mix of animosity, friendship, deception, guilt, and love plays out with both sharp humor and pathos. "Please Give" is writer/director Nicole Holofcener's perceptive take on modern life's contradictions, good intentions and shaky moral bearings.

PLEASE GIVE
Friday, July 9 - Thursday, July 22


Continuing through July 15 is "The Girl with the Gragon Tattoo."

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her beloved uncle is convinced she was murdered and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family.

He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and the tattooed and troubled but resourceful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost 40 years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

Author Stieg Larsson, who died suddenly in 2004, left behind three unpublished novels, known as the "Millennium" trilogy, that have become a global sensation, elevating Larsson to the world's second best-selling author last year. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is one of the decade's major literary success stories, selling over 8 million copies worldwide and the film adaptation is the highest-grossing Swedish film in history and 2009's highest-grossing European production.


THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
no through Thursday, July 15

More details at: http://www.theross.org