Pieces Of April
- Film Worth:$10.00
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Katie Holmes plays April, a young woman preparing a lavish Thanksgiving meal for her uptight...
Katie Holmes plays April, a young woman preparing a lavish Thanksgiving meal for her uptight family, who are driving from some suburban outpost to visit her in the slums of New York City. April is the wayward eldest daughter of the family and judging by the bitchy comments from her mother and sister en route, you get the impression that they don't really want to have anything to do with her. But everyone is making a monumental effort seeing as this might just be the last Thanksgiving they'll share as a family, albeit a very dysfunctional one. Of course, getting the feast on the table threatens to be foiled by one disaster after the next, but it's not as predictable as you might expect.
Patricia Clarkson plays a bitch-on-wheels mum, who is dying of breast cancer. She clearly hasn't managed to reach the "acceptance" stage of her impending demise but is going to exit this world kicking, screaming and affronting everyone within earshot. Oliver Platt is great as the long-suffering father who is just trying to do the right thing.
Debut director Peter Hedges is an acclaimed author who wrote the screen adaptation for his novel What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and adapted Nick Hornby's About A Boy for the screen, which scored him an Oscar nomination.
Although made on an extremely low budget (it was all done on a two week digital shoot for under $200,000) Pieces Of April is surprisingly well-made. Even the still photos at the end of the film (perhaps they ran out of money!) are unexpectedly effective and moving.
