Year:
2003
Studio:
IFC Productions
Independent Digital
Entertainment
Kalkaska Productions
Feature: 4/5
DVD:
3/5
Pieces of April is
a touching movie about accepting people for who they are. April (Katie
Holmes) is a punk-goth girl with a black boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke).
Much of the story concentrates on her attempts to make Thanksgiving
Dinner for her estranged family, who are driving all the way from the
suburbs to visit April in her ratty New York apartment.
Her biggest problem is that her stove is not working. April goes from
apartment to apartment trying to get a stove to cook on and with that
impetus she gets to meet the various inhabitants of ther building. And
as she meets them she gets to talk about why she is doing this dinner
and what it means to her and we find out her familial relationships
from her point of view.
Meanwhile the family is shown trekking to New York. There's Jim (Oliver
Platt) the dad, Joy (Patricia Clarkson) the mom whom April has a
hate-hate relationship with but who is gravely sick, Beth (Alison Pill)
the good daughter, Timmy (John Gallagher, Jr) the son and Grandma
(Alice Drummond).
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In the long
drive we get to see how the family interacts with each other and how
they feel about April. It's interesting that we get to see these two
viewpoints and stories and the relationships without April meeting her
family until the very end.
And the end of the movie is when the folks finally arrive. Actually I
think they could have ended right there, where April opens the door and
you get a *click* from Timmy's camera. It does go another minute to
give it a feel good ending but I wasn't actually expecting it to keep
going after the door opening bit.
Overall I really liked this movie. The characters are real and the
acting is quite good. The story is told slowly and it's compelling.
Bobby has his own subplot which was not really necessary although it
does show how much he loves April. At the end of the movie I felt good
and that's always a nice feeling.
Extras
Writer and director Peter Hedges provides the audio commentary. It was
fairly good and he points out lots of subtleties which is good because
he relies on showing rather than telling and some people will miss a
few things.
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