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Pieces of April

The pilgrims and Indians have traveled through time in a story that gives Americans an excuse to eat like pigs and watch hour after hour of football on television. Thanksgiving has become a day of gratitude and family togetherness, when a turkey symbolizes unity and all of America knows what time it is by the number of parades on T.V. In Pieces of April, April Burns and her family are not above giving thanks like the rest of the country, if only they can make it through the holiday without too many casualties or serious disasters.

April Burns (Katie Holmes, Abandon and TV’s Dawson’s Creek) is a young woman living with her boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke, Antwone Fisher), in a hole in the wall, in New York City. Clearly not the domestic type, she decides to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for her family, which gives new meaning to "it’s the thought that counts," as anything that could possibly go wrong in the kitchen goes wrong. Merely minutes into the film, April discovers that the oven is broken, which triggers a downward spiral of events that lead to an unexpected family reunion at the end of the film.

Pieces of April consists of three separate story lines that follow April, her family, and Bobby through a series of realistic turns, that keeps the viewer wondering if this dinner is actually going to happen. April meets several of her neighbors in the apartment building in her search for an oven to cook her turkey, including typical New York eccentric, Wayne (Sean Hayes, TV’s Will and Grace), and an Asian family that, even through the thick communication barrier, becomes her saving grace. Bobby is absent from the apartment for most of the film while he searches for a suit to wear to impress April’s family, encountering a not-so-promising clothing store and a few shady characters before he can return to the apartment, just in time to scare April’s family away.

The Burns family, consisting of mother, Joy (Patricia Clarkson, Far from Heaven and Welcome to Collinwood), father, Jim (Oliver Platt, Don’t Say a Word and TV’s The West Wing), sister, Beth (Alison Pill), brother, Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.) and Grandma Dottie (Alice Drummond), spend most of the film packed in a car on the way to New York City. As with any road trip, the family members demonstrate signs of annoyance toward each other, in addition to sporadic references to Joy’s cancer, and the family’s overwhelming lack of enthusiasm for seeing April, who is noticeably the black sheep of the family. The question of whether or not the family will make it to New York lingers throughout the film, as it becomes obvious that this trip is more of an obligation than an opportunity for quality time with April.

The film is shot almost documentary-style, causing some of the footage to seem a bit shaky, as is the case with most independent films. However in this movie, the shakiness and graininess adds to the idea of the film, which could be compared to a home movie. Pieces of April adopts that "home video" feel as the film progresses, and the technical instability seems to work for the story, while mimicking April’s wobbly and erratic role as daughter and girlfriend. Directed and written by Peter Hedges, Pieces of April portrays a typical American family in an entertaining light. While the film is basically just a depiction of how one family celebrates the holidays, its truthful representation allows the viewer to relate to the story, either by sympathizing with the family, or remembering a time when "that happened to me." Movies such as this one often exaggerate events purely for story-telling purposes, however, the events that take place in Pieces of April are not so far-fetched that the viewer watches the film with one eye-brow raised. Although it seems like a lost cause towards the end, the audience feels for April and hopes she can pull this dinner off for her family, who has such little faith in her that it’s a wonder why they didn’t just stay home.

Written by: Rebecca Keller

Reviewers Rating: 8
Reader's Rating: 8.86
Reader's Votes: 7

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