Themes: Mothers and Daughters, Family Gatherings, Nothing Goes Right
Main Cast: Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt, Derek Luke, Alison Pill
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 80 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Novelist and screenwriter Peter Hedges makes his directorial debut with the comedy drama Pieces of April. Family outcast April Burns (Katie Holmes) lives in a beat-up apartment in New York's Lower East Side with her boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke). In order to spend some time with her dying mother, Joy (Patricia Clarkson), April invites her conservative suburban family to her place for a Thanksgiving feast. She discovers that her oven is broken the morning of the big day, so she goes around her tenement building trying to find a sympathetic neighbor with a working oven. Though she doesn't know them, neighbors Eugene (Isiah Whitlock) and Evette (Lillias White) offer the use of their oven, but only for an hour. While she frantically tries to complete the meal, the family drives in from Pennsylvania sharing less-than-pleasant opinions about April's lifestyle. Dad Jim (Oliver Platt) tries to think positively, while daughter Beth (Alison Pill) flaunts her good-girl status and son Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.) captures it all on film. Shot with digital video, Pieces of April is a project of the Independent Film Channel's InDigEnt production company. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Review
From What's Eating Gilbert Grape to his adaptation of About a Boy, Peter Hedges has specialized in showing the warmth and humanity of oddball outsiders. April (Katie Holmes) most certainly fits into that mode as the black sheep oldest daughter who has invited her suburban family into the big city to make Thanksgiving dinner for them -- even though she has no clue how to cook. The scenes in the apartment building are erratic in quality. For every good scene between April and her kind African-American neighbors, there are dull sequences like the ones involving an oddball who lives upstairs (Sean Hayes in a performance which shows that the first-time director exercised little control over his actors). April's trials and tribulations in preparing the meal are contrasted with her family's trip to the apartment. Hedges the screenwriter so economically establishes everyone in the family in their opening scene that much of what transpires during the first half of their adventures feels redundant. Patricia Clarkson is good as the sarcastic, icy cancer victim mother. You can see why her oldest child attempted to get away from her, and why her two remaining children continuously attempt to one-up each other in her eyes. Oliver Platt gives the best performance in the film as a loving father and family peacemaker, privately on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown at the thought of losing his wife. His character feels like he came from a different and much better movie. Pieces of April provides a fine if uninspired starting point for Hedges' career behind the camera, but it marks a low point in an otherwise stellar career as a screenwriter. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
John Gallagher, Jr. - Timmy Burns; Alice Drummond - Grandma Dottie; Sean Hayes - Wayne; Sisqo - Latrell; Lillias White - Evette; Isiah Whitlock, Jr. - Eugene
Credit
Dianne Dreyer - Associate Producer, Bernie Telsey - Casting, Will Cantler - Casting, David Vaccari - Casting, Lucille Masone Smith - Co-producer, Lucy Barzun - Co-producer, Laura Cunningham-Bauer - Costume Designer, Vebe Borge - First Assistant Director, Peter Hedges - Director, Mark Livolsi - Editor, John Sloss - Executive Producer, Caroline Kaplan - Executive Producer, Jonathan Sehring - Executive Producer, Stephin Merritt - Composer (Music Score), Rick Butler - Production Designer, Tami Reiker - Cinematographer, Gary Winick - Producer, John Lyons - Producer, Alexis Alexanian - Producer, Holly Becker - Producer, Aaron Rudelson - Sound/Sound Designer, Peter Hedges - Screenwriter
Pieces of April is a 2003Americancomedy-dramafilm written and directed by Peter Hedges. In his commentary on the film's DVD release, Hedges says the inspiration for his screenplay was twofold — his mother's battle with and death from cancer, and a true story about a group of friends whose plans to prepare a communal Thanksgiving dinner were thwarted by a broken stove.
April Burns, the eldest daughter in a highly dysfunctional family, lives in a small tenement apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with her boyfriend Bobby. Although estranged from her family, she opts to invite them for Thanksgiving dinner, probably the last for her mother Joy, who has breast cancer. The film focuses on three journeys: the family's arduous trek from suburbia to New York City, one punctuated by stops for Krispy Kreme doughnuts, bagels, Joy's frequent need for a restroom or a joint to ease her pain, a burial service for an animal they hit, and various arguments and recriminations; Bobby's efforts to find a suit so he can make a good impression on his girlfriend's relatives; and April's preparations for the meal, a near disaster when she discovers her oven is broken. With the help of various neighbors, she manages to assemble dinner, while learning to appreciate the importance of family and making some new friends in the process.
In his review in the New York Times, Elvis Mitchell called the film an "intelligent and touching farce" and added, "Mr. Hedges dances from one vignette to another with a mouthwatering finesse." [1]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said "it contains much good humor" and "has a lot of joy and quirkiness; it's well-intentioned in its screwy way, with flashes of human insight, and actors who can take a moment and make it glow." [2]
In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers described it as "a playful comedy laced with heartbreak," adding, "It's Holmes who holds Pieces together . . . [she] nails every laugh without missing the dramatic nuances. She makes April and her movie well worth knowing." [3]
Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film " both heartfelt and tough-minded . . . [it] avoids sentimentality at every turn and truly earns both its laughs and its tears." [4]
In Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman rated the film C, calling it a "glib comedy" and adding, "Hedges shoves his characters into sitcom slots and seals them there." [5]
