Synopsis
May, 35, is pet sitting rent-free in her employer Candace’s elegant home so she can write. Except she’s decided to quit. After years of engineering her entire life around her art — the odd jobs, the borrowed spaces, the deferred everything — she is facing the kind of reckoning that arrives at 35: maybe it’s time to just live. The Inner Critic — May’s sharper, brighter double, and despite her name, her most ferocious advocate — has other ideas. When May runs into Stephanie, a college contemporary who has done everything May hasn’t (finished her novel, landed a publisher, made it look effortless), she can’t bear to be herself — not this version, not today. She borrows the persona of her employer Candace: the caftan, the confidence, the performance of a woman who has it together. But Stephanie, it turns out, is more stuck than she looks. What begins as an escape becomes something stranger and more honest than either of
them expected.
The film features an acclaimed cast, including Eleanore Pienta from A24’s A Different Man, SJ Son from Servant, and Cathy Curtin from Stranger Things.
Style of Film
Like my short film The Callback, Live, Laugh, Give Up is a dark comedy about what it costs to keep making work. May hasn’t had writing success as an adult. She’s watched peers move ahead. She’s still here — pet sitting in someone else’s elegant home, arguing with the version of herself who refuses to let her quit.
The visual language is deliberately normal: high–key lighting, tasteful art direction, the kind of interiors that look like Zillow on a sunny day — lawns immaculate, streets quiet, everything blending into a soft beige glow. This is the world May is temporarily allowed into but is not a part of. The serenity is interrupted only by fluorescent sticky notes in dark all–caps: “GOOD LUCK ON THE WRITING — DO THE WORK. AND USE COASTERS.”
May is visually at odds with all of it — dark, worn clothing, needs a haircut. The Inner Critic, played by the same actor, wears too much makeup and a bright red jumpsuit. Stephanie, who belongs to the successful world, is sharply dressed, hair styled, makeup minimal. The contrast is the joke, and also the point. It’s a role — the scruffy outsider in the elegant house — that men have played in comedies for decades. Few women have.
Films with a similar dynamic — protagonists at odds within well–to–do environments: Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Crazy Rich Asians, Being There, Trading Places, Working Girl, My Man Godfrey. With the added surreal elements: The Big Lebowski. The darker scenes — May’s self–doubt, her failed sessions — take place in a kitchen where the dog eats better than his keeper, late at night, or in the entryway where she decides whether to work or run.
Sound is exaggerated to reflect her alienation: squeaky toys, sizzling dog food, popping social–media emojis. The run–in with Stephanie is sound–driven — a suburban cacophony of barking, sprinklers, and leaf blower drowning out Stephanie’s voice as May trades in her identity for her employer’s.
Throughout, simple in–camera effects place the Inner Critic within the same environment as May, without ever showing them in the same frame — keeping her at a remove from the external world May is borrowing, but never fully inhabits.
Key Personnel
Kara Herold (Director, Editor, Co–Writer): Kara Herold’s films employ wit, thought-provoking storytelling, and dynamic visual assemblages to comment upon the uneasy intersections between feminist perspectives and dominant cultural expectations and institutions. She has written, directed, and produced a broad variety of films, from short animations to award-winning documentaries. Bachelorette, 34, a humorous take on society’s obsession with marriage expressed through a mother-daughter relationship, premiered at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam and played at the Documentary Fortnight at MoMA in New York in 2009. Bachelorette, 34 is distributed by New Day Films. Grrlyshow, about the girl ‘zine explosion in the ‘90s, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, screened at many additional festivals, and is distributed by Women Make Movies. Kara Herold’s first feature comedy, 39½, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and her new short film, The Callback, written in collaboration with Lisa McElroy, premiered at the Maryland Film Festival and screened internationally, including the Mill Valley Film Festival and Hof International Film Festival in Germany. She is currently in post-production on a feature documentary, Mid-Film Crisis, for which she received a NYSCA grant in 2026. Live, Laugh, Give Up, a new short fiction film co-written with Lisa McElroy.
Lisa McElroy (Co-Writer): Lisa McElroy has an MFA in Cinema at SFSU and worked in film and television production, including the visual-effects industry for 20+ years. Her short films have been shown at festivals in the U.S. and Europe and she directed music videos for independent musicians. She is currently working as an artist and illustrator, exhibiting at Northern Californian galleries. In 2020, her illustrations were animated for the feature film 39 ½ written and directed by Kara Herold. She co-wrote and illustrated The Callback (2024) which screened internationally and Live, Laugh, Give Up (in progress) with Kara Herold.
Caroline Mariko Stucky (Cinematographer): Caroline Mariko Stucky is an award-winning Swiss-Japanese
filmmaker who has shot five award-winning features. Her most recent, Regarding Us, a transgender drama, was
acquired by Gravitas Ventures; her third feature, Stag, a female-centered horror comedy, won numerous awards on
the festival circuit.
Adam Raymonda (Sound recordist): Adam Raymonda is a professor of practice in the Department of Film and Media Arts at Syracuse University, where he teaches sound design and production sound. A freelance producer, sound designer, and composer, his clients include Netflix, Vogue, SoFi, iHeart Radio, and Audible. He is also the founder of Rogue Dialogue Productions, where he pioneered immersive fiction podcasting.
Eleanore Pienta plays both May and her inner critic. An award-winning actor, comedian, dancer, and filmmaker, Pienta has carved out a niche in the independent US film circuit playing uncompromising, complex characters whose screen presence is at once alluring and unsettling.
SJ Son plays Stephanie, May’s college nemesis. She has appeared opposite Florence Pugh in A Good Person, and in Netflix’s Kaleidoscope, Apple TV+’s Servant, and Max’s Search Party. She hosts KPOPPED, Apple TV+’s K-pop competition series, and performs her solo comedy show CUM at Ars Nova and comedy venues across NYC.
Cathy Curtin plays Candace, the homeowner whose identity May borrows. She is the recipient of 11 wins and 12 nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, including SAG Awards for Best Ensemble in 2015 and 2016 for Orange Is the New Black and a SAG nomination for Stranger Things. Recent credits include Saturday Night (dir. Jason Reitman, TIFF/Sony), Bad Shabbos (Netflix, Tribeca Audience Award 2024), Worth (Netflix), Bad Education(HBO), and The Half of It (Netflix), among many others.
