Pieces of April (2003)

The premise of the movie is a simple one and basically summarizes the whole movie, "A wayward daughter invites her dying mother and the rest of her estranged family to her apartment for Thanksgiving dinner."

The movie starts us off on that Thanksgiving morning. First, we are introduced to April, and her boyfriend Bobby who are living together in a shanty apartment in New York, and then to April's mother, father, and brothers and sisters in another location, who are preparing to make the trip to visit her. We aren't provided with any back story, except what we gather about the past from conversations that April's mother has with the rest of the family during their voyage.

Honestly, I was finding myself slightly bored during the beginning of the movie. The film, although over an hour, manages to span over just one day, lending it a slow feel. The cinematography was somewhat unimpressive. The soundtrack is sparse, with most scenes not having any music at all, and the music that is present is humming just outside the viewer's awareness most of the time rather than being the main focus in any one scene.

I found myself easily able to make prejudgments about each of the main characters based on their limited dialogues and their reactions to things going on around them. I stereotyped Beth as the movie's prim and proper "good younger daughter". She gave unsolicited advice with surprising frequency, and always seemed to try to distinguish herself as being the opposite of the "wild child" elder sister that she obviously secretly envied, if not admired. Timmy played an easygoing middle-child, cleverly juggling his role of responsibility as the one only other "man of the house" with the conflicting role of unimportance being in the middle tends to lend to a person. Bobby was the soft-hearted but firm father. You could almost feel his tension when you looked at him, empathize with his struggles to hold his family together, knowing that he would someday have to do it all alone.

Finally, we come to April's mother, Joy. Whether Joy is an ironic name for her or not, I will leave for you viewers to decide. She comes across as jaded and sarcastic, with a sly sense of humor and a stubborn streak. Most of all though, she seems tired, the toll from her illness clear on her; the toll from her strained relationship with April, clearer still.

Then of course, there's April herself. She's fierce, independent, and loyal. It isn't hard to see why she could've gotten into trouble in the past, but it also isn't difficult to see how she probably got out of it.

This movie definitely has its funny moments, mostly stemming from the encounters with the characters that Apirl meets as she struggles to pull together her Thanksgiving dinner. Her family also has some adventures during their trip, starting (almost) with picking up April's partially senile grandmother from the nursing home.

Despite its simplicity- or maybe because of it- this film will tug at your heartstrings in a way that you don't expect. At least, it certainly did mine, partially because I could personally identify with having a strained relationship with my own mother, even if it was just for a time. I found myself close to tears during some moments, which is rare.

I think the message of the movie is, that love has power, that family is still family even when some of you don't fit in, some of you don't like each other too much, and s

Fmovies: OMG, as a retired person I can switch the TV on whenever I like and do so often at noon, but today I was not prepared for this! I just planted myself at the breakfast bar on a bar stool and proceed to something some call lunch and clicked on the TV. "Pieces of April", what kind of title is this, another tele movie to entertain my lunch for a few minutes? - weeeell, so much more than that, at times "lunch" had problem to find its way down as there was a big lump in my throat and my watery eyes glued on the TV set wondering what would happen next, and would it be good. I could not believe this wonderful work had passed me without saying hello in one form or other. I can't understand the detachment from TV channels, they'll beat you ears to no end with some insignificant trash, but won't say a word about this kind of art work. On the other end I'm glad they did not as it was such a joy to see this without any expectations. You can't help but being involved in the plot. You become part of this young woman's struggle to achieve a goal against all odds. And will she succeed? This question remains in her mind and yours till the very end, you can't guess, you can only hope in despair with her. As for the guests to her effort, a Thanks Giving dinner, You may understand them but you may also wonder about them. I hope you will see this film, just like me, with no idea at all about what it is. but it would be an even greater disaster if you did not see it at all.

I loved this movie basically because is what sometimes I felt about my family or friends. Sometimes you make a great thing for one of them and they don't even care about that amazing thing you made especially for them. I could see myself as April, trying to be super nice and caring with them, until her mum realizes about how much she still loved April and how much damage she and the entire family is making by the fact of not appearing at the dinner.

Also the camera effects are involving and amazing. The environment created by the director and the actors makes you go deeper into the film and really see or watch what's happening in the story. I really gets you in the places, the story, the entire film. Great job, and excellent performances.

Pieces of April fmovies. I am so glad that I decided to plonk down a couple of dollars and see this movie on Pay for Play the other night. I wasn't sure what to expect, and I had one of the nicest movie surprises I had in a long time.

April is a the black sheep of her family, but as Rita Mae Brown wrote in one of her better novels to describe a character, has golden hooves. She's gone off from the hills of, what is filmed anyway, in upstate New York to lower Manhattan. But she's no That Girl. Her previous boyfriend was a drug dealer, and her current fellow, gets his clothing at less than wholesale prices.

She has a mixed bag dysfunctional family, the star of which is the kind of little sister you wish you had sent out to play in traffic when you had a chance, that she is trying to reconnect with. April is too good for this bunch, as she tries to prepare the all American Thanksgiving dinner in her own special way for this undeserving bunch.

It is so touching to see her, finally succeeding (maybe) in her quest for a stove making favors, and decorating the stairway, all 4-5 floors with autumn colored streamers, etc.

I just wanted to hug her!

"Pieces of April" is a wonderful New York component for a trilogy of mordant but ultimately sweet holiday movies, along with the Parisian "La Buche" and the multi-ethnic L. A. "What's Cooking."

I particularly identified with Katie Holmes's character's incompetence at cooking Thanksgiving dinner when the other women in the theater were laughing uproariously at her efforts and I wasn't even sure what she was doing wrong, other than focusing like I would do more on the decorations than the food preparation.

Screenwriter and debut director Peter Hedges filmed in poorly lit digital video on an evidently minuscule budget but with a terrific cast and mise en scenes.

The characters who embark on parallel picaresque odysseys in a quaintly but believably diverse Lower East Side tenement and suburbs to city road trip are refreshingly individual and un-stereotyped in surprising directions, even if the actors may overdo the theatrical flourishes. Sean Hayes especially over-fusses his neighbor bit. Patricia Clarkson is marvelous as a mother with daughter issues and cancer.

There was nary a dry eye in the house at the end.

"Once there was this one day where everybody seemed to know they needed each other. This one day when they knew for certain that they couldn't do it alone." (April, trying to explain the origins of Thanksgiving.) That ultimately is what this movie is about -- people needing people, and the inter-relationships of people. It's about April and her family, but it's also about April and Bobby, the Lee family, Eugene and Evette, and even Wayne, who needs somebody, but misses connecting once again. Jim needs Joy, Bobby needs Latrell, Joy needs her family, she and Timmy need the bikers, and it just goes on and on. We all need one another and touch one another, and those touches spread out and out. Beautiful.

I also loved all the little twists, such as the stiff, middle-aged mother chiding her teenage son about properly rolling a joint; and the puncturing of stereotypes and prejudices. When Bobby's waiting by the phone for Latrell, it's probably tempting to think he's doing a drug deal or some other unsavory activity. But I knew better; I was laughing well before it was revealed what they were up to. Magnificent.

Another one to add to the video library, and I'm going to have to check out more Peter Hedges (though I have seen Gilbert Grape).