Release Date: October 17, 2003
Starring: Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt, Derek Luke, Alison PIll, Alice Drummond, John Gallagher Jr.
Directed by: Peter Hedges
Written by: Peter Hedges
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (language, sensuality, drug content, images of nudity)
The great promise of digital video is that it would cut down on production costs, eliminating the need to use and develop conventional, expensive celluloid film and streamlining the editing process. But there is another benefit, and if you watch Pieces of April, a quirky, endearing, low-budget comedy written and directed by Peter Hedges, you will immediately see what it is: Digital video gives footage a home-movie-like quality, turning glossy productions into gritty, realistic pseudo-documentaries -- and further blurring the line between the real world and the fictional one.
This is to the advantage for Pieces of April, which is only 81 minutes long and flies by so quickly it feels even shorter. There isn't a lot of room for characterization. It helps that the casting is solid -- most noticeably, Katie Holmes transforms herself into a troubled twentysomething looking to make good with her estranged family -- but the slightly grainy, slightly unsteady feel of digital video makes it very easy for the viewer to unconsciously slip into the movie's world.
Holmes plays April Burns, and as the movie opens in her New York City apartment on Thanksgiving morning, she is frantically, grudgingly, apprehensively preparing a traditional meal of turkey and trimmings for the rest of her family. April wants the holiday to be a reunion of sorts, because she long ago left her Pennsylvania home on bad terms after a series of incidents that are hinted at but never directly explained.
It's quite obvious that the rest of her family -- her perfectionist little sister Beth (Alison Pill), her pothead photographer brother Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.), her amicable, kindhearted father (Oliver Platt), her senile grandmother (Alice Drummond), and her cynical, outspoken mother (Patricia Clarkson), who is dying of cancer -- doesn't think that this day will be any different. As they make their way from suburban Pennsylvania to Manhattan, almost all of them concoct different reasons to prolong their arrival.
In one scene, April's mother makes the family stop to bury a dead squirrel they find on the highway; in another, they spend an inordinate amount of time munching donuts in a Krispy Kreme parking lot. These are juxtaposed with shots of April and her seemingly mismatched boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke), putting everything together: April cooks so infrequently that she uses her oven for storage, and her bedspread doubles as a tablecloth. Making matters worse, her oven breaks down just as she's ready to put the turkey in -- forcing her to scramble around her apartment building to find other ovens to share.
The various characters that turn up during this hunt make for some offbeat comedy, the best weapon in the movie's arsenal and one that's not used frequently enough. April first encounters Evette (Lillias White) and Eugene (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), a black couple who provide her advice and encouragement despite her obvious naïveté. April, for instance, insists that canned cranberry sauce will do for her meal. "I like it from the can," she says, catching Eugene's skeptical look. "Nobody likes it from the can," says Eugene.
Then she runs into Wayne (Sean Hayes), a suspiciously well-dressed white guy who has just had a brand new oven installed. As he and April stand in front of the stainless steal monstrosity, he lists its features and capabilities in an almost masturbatory fashion, cradling a tiny dog in one arm like an egomaniacal archvillain in a James Bond movie. It is not the first time in the movie that writer-director Hedges parallels the culinary and the sexual. In an earlier scene, April lists the ingredients and steps in her mother's turkey recipe as she and Bobby have sex, like some kind of epicurean pillow talk.
This is a great role for Holmes, and you can tell she appreciates the opportunity it affords her to change her career. She has mostly been stuck playing the typical slate of big-screen roles reserved for onetime television queens -- everything from femme fatales in thrillers to sex kittens in, well, more thrillers. But she makes the most of this break from tradition, downplaying her trademark spunk for a truly genuine performance.
Occasionally, the lighter, more nonsensical rhythm of the apartment building threatens to come into conflict with the more somber atmosphere of the scenes with the rest of her family. April's mother is dying of cancer, though the director never overplays the sentimentality card. In fact, it is not until the final scene, when Hedges captures the imminent reunion in picture-book fashion, offering snapshots without dialogue, that there is a true sense of the movie's emotional power. Audiences who have had stable, dependable families and very sheltered upbringings will probably never have the chance to realize the rehabilitative power of a family gathering like the one that takes place at the end of Pieces of April.
-- Craig Roush (crr225@nyu.edu)