a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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Although Pieces of April is Peter Hedges’ first film as a director-and his instincts are razor-sharp-it’s the second film he’s offered us about a flawed family struggling to make the best of things.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? was based on his novel, and remains one of the most honest, believable, and touching family dramas of the last 20 years. Director Lasse Hallström crafted it to perfection. It featured one of Johnny Depp’s best performances, and introduced a lot of moviegoers to the formidable talents of Leonardo DiCaprio in a performance he hasn’t matched since. An array of likeable supporting roles for John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, and Juliette Lewis helped create a little world that was completely convincing.
Hedges also scored points with his wonderful screenplay for Nick Hornby’s About a Boy, one of the finest comedies of 2002.
In Pieces of April, Hedges has another note-perfect cast, but this time he is directing them himself. I mean no disrespect to Hallström, but with Pieces of April, Hedges proves he’s fully capable of directing his own material. It’s smaller, messier, and filmed with a Dogme 95-style aversion to fancy camerawork, external soundtrack music, special effects, and glamor. And yet it has a peculiar and rare sort of movie magic that leaves us with tears in our eyes and smiles on our faces, moved by something real instead of empty sentiment.
Hedges finds resources in television actress Katie Holmes we never knew she had. She makes the perfect April, and I can’t imagine anybody else in the role.
April is old enough to have her own apartment but far too young to take on life’s larger challenges. She still dresses like a rebellious high schooler. She’s wrestled with drugs, shoplifting, and an array of other misbehaviors. Her mother considers her a disaster, her optimistic father constantly searches for feeble excuses to stick up for her, her sister revels in succeeding where April has failed, and her brother looks burdened and weary of the whole family dynamic. Thus, she has no idea of the trouble she’s courting when she invites them all to her apartment, offering them her first homemade Thanksgiving dinner.
Central to this story is the fact that April’s mother is dying. Joy, who bemoans the mess her eldest daughter has made of her life, is watching her own life slip through her fingers. As she prepares herself for what may be their last encounter, she is a bundle of nerves, fears, anger, and regrets. She can’t tolerate another reminder of what she probably quietly considers her failure, but she is also feeling for one last chance, one desperate hope of a meaningful connection with her prodigal daughter. As played by Patricia Clarkson, she is a complicated, fractured human being with deep wells of personal regret that go beyond her daughter’s troubled history. She is also very funny, and in her sense of humor, she finds the resilience to go on, trusting her husband’s more forgiving nature even as she harasses him about it.
Dad is a large, loveable character, a guy who believes that his lost daughter can still pull her life together. He’s a tireless warrior who loves his wife and kids unconditionally, even if he does harbor doubts that they will hold up their end of the deal to make this holiday work. Beleaguered but affable, clumsy but full of love, he is brought to life by Oliver Platt. It’s the actor’s most endearing performance.
The siblings are perfectly cast as well. Beth (Alison Pill) is shrill and egotistical, but we can see the cracks in her façade. Timmy (John Gallagher, Jr.) is the weary son, tired of the female-o-drama of his mother and sisters, following his instinct to record moments of his family’s experience no matter what the circumstances. He’s an unusually loyal and loving brother, one who knows his words won’t go far in these habitual family debates, so instead he focuses on his strength: photography.
I could go on and on about the supporting characters that fill up April’s apartment building, and the charming work by Derek Luke as her current boyfriend. We get a full tour of the building due to that fact that April needs help in preparing a feast. An emergency is inevitable, and soon she is asking a bunch of strangers for help. All she has available to her are the few folks who have remained in the dingy ghetto apartment complex where she lives. Some of them help her, some of them don’t. But along her desperate quest, she makes humbling discoveries and learns the value of charity.
Meanwhile, the family is making a journey both by car and by heart, trying to find their way (or perhaps losetheir way) to April’s mysterious new apartment. As they pull over by one of those tacky rural “Christmas wonderlands” to pose in front of ceramic Santas, the timer on the camera clicks off and they break their silly pose. “There’s our Christmas card,” sighs Mom. “Without April?” Dad asks wryly. “Since when was she in the picture?” Joy snaps back.
April’s boyfriend Bobby is making a journey too. At one point, he tells his friend a story about his own mother’s moment of unbelievable strength. Whether or not it’s true historically, it is True with a capital “T.” It is what is possible, what is best.
Similarly, when April sits down with a Japanese family to explain the Thanksgiving tradition to them, she begins with the “real” story of Thanksgiving, then slips into the pessimistic version (“Of course, then we killed them all, stole their land…”) and concludes with the Truth… the meaning we reach for in the tradition… that it’s about how we all need each other.
Her mother is similarly struggling to find something to grasp before she loses her daughter April forever. She knows the historical truth about the drugs, the shoplifting, the endless problems. She’s asking around for alternative memories. But in the end, she makes a desperate lunge for what might be possible. And it makes all the difference. Pieces of April concludes so abruptly, so beautifully, that (oh man, this is one of those things that leaves you with only clichés) my heart leapt into my throat when it happened. It’s a stroke of genius, and a conclusion that dares not say too much, yet gives us enough to hold onto–the best truth, the one we need to keep us going.
For me to say much more would rob you of some of the film’s many joys. Suffice it to say — it takes a village to cook a turkey. That’s the premise of Pieces of April, or at least one of the best ideas in this delightful little miracle of a movie. It reminds us of how crucial it is that we appreciate and love each other in spite of our failures, grudges, and disappointments. Such forbearance pries open the door that might allow grace to walk right in and change everything.