Film Review: Pieces of April (2003)

Thanksgiving Day is specifically American holiday that only recently began to gain global dimension due to businesses, under direct or indirect influence of US corporate overlords, adopting Black Friday tradition. Strictly cultural meaning of the holiday is, however, still reserved for USA alone and, among other things, maintained through very specific Hollywood genre of “Thanksgiving films”, which could never aspire to be as successful as Christmas films. One of the better, albeit lesser known, examples is Pieces of April, 2003 drama written and directed by Peter Hedges.

The protagonist, played by Katie Holmes, is April Burns, young woman who left her suburban home to find new life in New York City. She decides to invite her estranged family to her small apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. The family has very reluctantly decided to accept, because Katie and her mother Joy (played by Patricia Clarkson) aren’t on best of terms. Joy has, however, been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and this Thanksgiving is very likely the last one the family will spend together. As April desperately struggles to finish the dinner when faced with broken oven and other problems, Joy travels to New York City accompanied by her husband Jim (played by Oliver Platt), April’s senile grandmother Dottie (played by Alice Drummond) and April’s two younger siblings – sister Beth (played by Allison Pill) and brother Timmy (played by John Gallagher Jr.). When they arrive to Joy’s neighbourhood and meet her African American boyfriend Bobby (played by Derek Luke), Burnses have second thoughts whether to actually attend dinner.

Pieces of April, with its 81 minutes of running time, is unusually short film. It is also film with very low budget, but, despite that, it had trouble getting funding and the only reason why it got produced at the end was his author Peter Hedges considering as very personal project. Hedges, who used to be novelist and playwright before getting involved in film making, found inspiration in his own mother to whom the film was ultimately dedicated. Unlike many Thanksgiving films that revolve around deliberately quirky characters, Pieces of April takes more realistic approach and tries to avoid usual Hollywood stereotypes. Both April and Joy are flawed characters with their relationship being burdened with past events that Hedges, much to his credit, doesn’t address directly and prefers audience to draw its own conclusions. The script flirts with social commentary by contrasting Joy’s new life in dilapidated and racially diverse inner city neighbourhood with her, presumably middle class, “normie” suburban family, but it never goes over the top. There is some humour, but Hedges doesn’t try to make Pieces of April into comedy, never shying away from tragic circumstances in the background that gives poignancy to the plot. Hedges is helped by wonderful cast, most notably Patricia Clarkson who excels in one of the most dramatic roles of her career, never going over the top. Clarkson deservedly nominations for Oscar and Golden Globe for her work. Katie Holmes is also very good in the role of rebellious prodigal daughter. Her efforts are supported by the rest of the cast, that includes some notable names like Oliver Platt and Sean Hayes. Although its conclusion might look too syrupy and too predictable for more cynical viewers, Pieces of April represents a very good film that should be recommended to connoisseurs of American independent cinema.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

_

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo

InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax y
Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7

Posted using CineTV