Pieces of April

2003 Comedy Drama

Novelist and screenwriter Peter Hedges makes his directorial debut with the comedy drama Pieces of April. Family outcast April Burns (Katie Holmes) lives in a beat-up apartment in New York's Lower East Side with her boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke). In order to spend some time with her dying mother, Joy (Patricia Clarkson), April invites her conservative suburban family to her place for a Thanksgiving feast. She discovers that her oven is broken the morning of the big day, so she goes around her tenement building trying to find a sympathetic neighbor with a working oven. Though she doesn't know them, neighbors Eugene (Isiah Whitlock) and Evette (Lillias White) offer the use of their oven, but only for an hour. While she frantically tries to complete the meal, the family drives in from Pennsylvania sharing less-than-pleasant opinions about April's lifestyle. Dad Jim (Oliver Platt) tries to think positively, while daughter Beth (Alison Pill) flaunts her good-girl status and son Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.) captures it all on film. Shot with digital video, Pieces of April is a project of the Independent Film Channel's InDigEnt production company. more..

Director: Peter Hedges

Starring: Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt, Derek Luke, Sean Hayes

 31 Reviews  25 Awards

Reviews

  • Both heartfelt and tough-minded.

    - The San Francisco Chronicle

    26 April 2013

  • It turns out to be an especially warm comedy with a hidden heart. It's a film whose humor has feeling behind it because writer-director Peter Hedges doesn't let his comedy overpower an understanding of how emotionally weighted family situations are always going to be.

    Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

    26 April 2013

  • Pieces of April would deserve your attention and respect even if all these colorful threads didn't come together into a luminous whole. But they do, beautifully and unaffectedly, because what's been on Mr. Hedges's mind is not just a comedy of alienation but a drama of acceptance and reconciliation.

    Joe Morgenstern - The Wall Street Journal

    26 April 2013

  • This warm and scruffy film may strike some as a mere period piece, but it's juiced with recognizable family trauma and garnished with a quirky sensibility -- it's the portrait of a group of people we come to care about.

    - The Hollywood Reporter

    26 April 2013

  • Despite its flaws, Pieces of April has a lot of joy and quirkiness; it's well-intentioned in its screwy way, with flashes of human insight, and actors who can take a moment and make it glow.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    26 April 2013

Awards

  • Best Actress in a Supporting Role

    Academy Awards (2004)

     

  • Best Supporting Actress

    Boston Society of Film Critics Awards (2003)

  • Best Foreign Independent Film

    British Independent Film Awards (2004)

     

  • Best Supporting Actress

    Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards (2004)

     

  • Best Casting for Feature Film, Independent

    Casting Society of America (2004)

     

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