Pieces of April 2003

     April Burns and her boyfriend Bobby live in a very poor area of New York.  They are expecting April’s family for thanksgiving dinner for the first time.  Bobby tries to borrow a suit and April realizes that her stove is broken plus she doesn’t know how to cook.  She tries to find a neighbor that will let her cook the turkey.  As the eldest daughter, she doesn’t want to fail again with her family.  She has two younger siblings Beth and Timmy.  In a suburb of Pennsylvania, her dysfunctional family is preparing to travel to New York.  There is a lot of talking in the car about the relationship between the Burns family and their black-sheep daughter April?  The family consists of her father Jim, mother Joy, brother, sister and grandmother.

     There are flaws in this film but it also has joy and quirkiness.  There are lapses but flashes of human insight.  It doesn’t take long to figure out there is lots of humor in the family but there is friction too.  Holidays with relatives can be stressful even if they live in your area and you see them a lot.  Can one meal be the paste that can possibly put a family back together again? 

     There is some strong language, some off-screen violence, medicinal marijuana, some brief but graphic nudity.  This can be tough to watch since it involves stressful parent/child relationships and the topic of death.  3 1/2* (I liked this movie) 

    
80 min, comedy directed and written by Peter Hedges with Katie Holmes, Oliver Platt, Patricia Clarkson, Derek Luke, Allison Pill, John Gallagher Jr., Alice Frummond, Viali Baganov, Lillias White, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Adrian Martinez, Susan Bruce, Jamari Richardson, Leila Danette.

Note:  Imdb 7* out of 10* with 20,003 reviews, Roger Ebert 3*, Rotten Tomatoes 84% with 153 critics 73% with 29,490 audience scores, RollingStone 3* Peter Travers, empire online 4* out of 5* Natasha Aitken, Common Sense Media Nell Minow, 4* out of 5*, age 15+, 2* role models, 3* violence, 3* sex, 3* language, 3* drinking, drugs, smoking.  

Special Note:  The title is from a Three Dog Night song.  Filmed in 16 days on a budget of $100,000,  Costs were kept low by the film company cutting a deal with the unions.  Peter Hedges was paid $10 to direct and another $10 to write it.  All the actors worked for $248 a day.  One inspiration for this movie was Peter Hedges hearing about a group of young adults who had borrowed an apartment so they could celebrate their first Thanksgiving in Manhattan together.  The oven didn’t work and they went door to door asking for a working oven to cook the turkey.  This film is dedicated to Peter Hedges’ mother, she died of cancer.  Patricia Clarkson was honored for her acting at Sundance 2003.  Peter Hedges also directed About a Boy and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

Mistakes:  The camera Timmy is using is a modern Nikon autofocus SLR and it has an electrically controlled self-timer that makes noise.  At the very end of the movie, the sound of an old manual self-time is inserted in the sound track.  April is shown with a bandage on her finger before she actually gets the cut?  Joy’s wig is wet after she rinses it in the sink.  A short time later, the wig is completely dry?