As a holiday, Thanksgiving is often rendered the ugly stepchild, sandwiched between the more exciting and commercialized Halloween and Christmas like some leftover turkey. This holds true for movies as well. Anyone can rattle off a slew of horror movies if called upon to do so, and the same goes for Christmas films. Again, Thanksgiving takes the back burner. With the exception of the highly popular Steve Martin and John Candy classic “Planes, Trains & Automobiles,” many movie buffs would be hard pressed to identify another film that’s exclusively the cinematic property of the November holiday.
Enter the 2003 Independent film “Pieces of April.” DVD special features reveal that Writer/Director Peter Hedges based the story on the sad death of his own mother, and this is what leads to the creation of the film – the result being a hidden gem that unfolds into a great story with excellent writing and an unusual layout.
The movie involves three separate realms and commences on Thanksgiving morning; April Burns (Katie Holmes) is a punk-emo type 21-year-old who is attempting to prepare Thanksgiving dinner in her tiny and dingy New York City apartment. Departing the suburbs and heading to April’s apartment is her estranged family – father Jim (Oliver Platt), mother Joy (Patricia Clarkson), goodie two shoes sister Beth (Alison Pill), socially awkward photo bug brother Timmy (John Gallagher Jr), and nursing home residing grandma Dottie (Alice Drummond.)
The third story arc involves April’s new boyfriend Bobby (Derek Luke). Bobby begins the morning by trying to help April with the dinner preparation and seems more concerned than her to make everything perfect for her family, though she quickly dismisses his efforts. He departs to “do a thing” he has to do; cruising through a sketchy neighborhood on his scooter as he is reminded by several people that a mysterious person named Tyrone is looking for him. The viewer is left with the ambiguous thought that Bobby is up to no good, but exactly what he is doing remains untold.
As April struggles to prepare a large Thanksgiving dinner (having had no cooking experience at all prior to this day) the Burns family makes the drive dealing with their own issues; Joy is suffering from breast cancer and this will, in all likelihood, be her last Thanksgiving. While the rest of the family bends over backwards to fuss over her, she remains cold and aloof to the situation, making jokes and ruing their comfort at every step of the way.
The family is convinced that April will fail at the attempt to make dinner, mocking her efforts and struggling to come up with positive memories from her childhood. April has always been a problem child and never got along well with her mother. Though her dad defends her, Joy remarks at one point “we show up, experience the disaster that is her life, smile through it, and before you know it we’re on our way back home.”
Meanwhile, trouble arises when April’s oven breaks down and she is forced to go door-to-door carrying her turkey throughout the seedy apartment building in search of help – befriending and encountering a host of unusual neighbors along the way such as married couple Eugene and Evette (Isaiah Whitlock Jr and Lillias White) who give April the pointers of preparing a proper Thanksgiving meal, and the unusual Wayne (Sean Hayes) who has a brand new state-of-the-art oven, his bizarre presence being the only obstacle.
Katie Holmes, known for her teenage years on the television show “Dawson’s Creek” and her more recent marital issues with space cadet Tom Cruise delivers a performance for a role seemingly designed for her – as the enigmatic and punk-like troubled young April Burns, and the supporting cast is superb as well. “Pieces of April” is told in the unusual format of two different stories, and set out in a unique way, the Burns family and April do not converge together until the movie is nearly over. At just over an hour in length, “Pieces of April” will keep you engaged throughout and you will truly be touched at the climatic ending. Save room on your dvd shelf for this must own holiday masterpiece.
– by Matt Christopher
