Pieces Of April Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)September 13th, 2003
PIECES OF APRIL
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A controlling mother (Patricia Clarkson, "Far From Heaven") wields a powerful weapon - cancer - over a family stumbling over themselves to be her best caretaker while her eldest daughter, black sheep April (Katie Holmes, "Wonder Boys"), attempts her first Thanksgiving dinner. As the fussing, feuding family makes the long trip from upstate to April's New York City apartment, April herself learns the true meaning of Thanksgiving when a broken oven forces her to rely on the strangers in neighboring apartments in writer/director Peter Hedges' (writer, "About a Boy") "Pieces of April."
Dysfunctional families are de rigeur for Thanksgiving films and "Pieces of April" delivers. This caustic look at the Burns family ranges from flinchingly funny to downright creepy while April's adventures in her own apartment building run the gamut from sweet to sinister.
Two distant clocks announce 7:01 a.m. April's new boyfriend Bobby (Derek Luke, "Antoine Fisher") puts the heavy sleeper into the shower fully dressed before the duo begin showing their ineptness in the kitchen (a turkey stuffed with a whole onion and celery stalks). Meanwhile dad Jim (Oliver Platt, "Lake Placid) wakens to panic when he doesn't find his wife at his side. After rude reactions for startling teenage children Beth (Alison Pill) and Tim (John Gallagher, Jr.), the threesome all become frantic until mom is found fully dressed, already waiting like an accusation in the family car.
Supportive Bobby leaves on a mysterious mission, already out of earshot when April discovers their oven doesn't work. After getting nowhere with the building super, April knocks on the door of 2B and finds a militant middle aged black woman, Evette (Lillias White, "Interview with the Assassin"), who scoffs at the idea of a young white woman having a problem. Minutes later, April's story has her in tears and Evette begins a turkey relay while her husband Eugene (Isiah Whitlock Jr., "25th Hour") offers up serious cuisine tips. When April's allotted time is up with the oven in 2B she has a run in with a vegan in 4A, then the truly demented Wayne (Sean Hayes, TV's "Will and Grace," in full Crispin Glover mode) in 5D who takes her bird hostage over an imagined slight before settling in with a delightful Asian family.
Meanwhile the ironically named Joy regurgitates a past with April in which she cannot find a single good memory while spearing 'perfect' daughter Beth with sharp words and conniving in an unhealthy relationship with son Tim. 'Why am I so hard on you? Because we had good times' (this is the script's sole explanation for her softening towards April later, presumably because they had none.) 'Who are you?' asks Joy's mother Dottie (Alice Drummond, "The Love Letter"), her question coming from more than her dementia. Jim desperately tries to keep the peace, April's only defender.
Hedges never makes the true nature of Joy and April's past clear. Joy's bad recollections are bolstered by sister Beth, but that could be a case of sibling rivalry from the overtly competitive sister. Tim's obsession with photographing every family moment (shades of "Capturing the Friedmans") culminates in a truly creepy sequence where it is revealed that he took shots of mom before and after a mastectomy. Hedges puts Jim in the long suffering wife role. Yet while his family politics are a bit murky, Hedges does a wonderful job delivering a holiday message without becoming cloying.
Holmes, her history only hinted at by her goth punk look, plays April tentatively, fitting for a girl trying on new relationships while taking a stab at mending a fractious one. She conveys the hurt inflicted by her mother in a nicely played scene with Luke, when his gift of turkey salt and pepper shakers bring back a painful memory. Luke is wonderfully sweet, a too good to be true partner who is nonetheless believable. That this thoroughly lovable young man loves April makes her mother and sister's recollections suspect. Clarkson drips bitterness like venom, only showing vulnerability when alone, rejecting the tiring solicitations of her family. Pill is terrific as the annoyingly perfect Beth. The smile which freezes upon her face when her mom belittles her is sickeningly accurate. Adding a true note of total lunacy is Hayes, whose obsessively dweebish behavior barely conceals something more disturbing. It's unclear what he expects from April - undying gratitude or sexual favors - for the use of his designer appliance. White and Whitlock inject much needed familial warmth along with that working oven.
While the inevitable mother/daughter reunion that takes place at the film's conclusion is slightly earned, the dark comedy and perfectly structured intercutting that keeps the two stories moving forward leading up to it make "Pieces of April" a holiday classic for the art house crowd.
B+
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