英文影评: 四月碎片 Pieces of April review by James Berardinelli

As human beings, we have an amazing thirst for closure. Thus, when an estranged family member dies without a reconciliation, the gaping sore can be especially painful for the one left behind. There are countless stories of deathbed peacemaking sessions between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers. But what of all those missed opportunities? This subject is very much in the forefront of director Peter Hedges' feature debut, Pieces of April. (Hedges, who wrote the novel What's Eating Gilbert Grape and the screenplay About a Boy, based aspects of the script on his own real-life experiences.) However, despite its themes of terminal illness, dysfunctional families, and the need to heal old wounds, the film spends more time provoking laughter than tears.

 

The story concerns twenty-something April (Katie Holmes), the proverbial black sheep of the family, who moved out of the family house to a dismal Lower East Side apartment as soon as the opportunity arose. Now, learning that her domineering mother (Patricia Clarkson) is dying from cancer, and prodded by her new boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke), to re-open contact, April extends the olive branch and invites the family to Thanksgiving dinner at her place. So the entire Burns clan bundles into the car to make the trip into the city - Mom, Dad (Oliver Platt), pothead brother Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.), stuck-up sister Beth (Alison Pill), and senile Grandma (Alice Drummond). Meanwhile, as she's getting ready to put the turkey in the oven, April has an uninvited guest: Murphy, whose law declares that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

 

Hedges could have taken this movie into darkly comedic territory, but, because he wants there to be an emotional payoff at the end, he opts for a lighter tone. This means that, while Murphy makes an appearance, he doesn't come charging out at full speed. Bad things routinely happen to these characters, but, when you consider the plight of the protagonist in After Hours, it becomes apparent that April gets off lightly. Hedges effectively treads the tightrope between comedy and drama without veering too far in either direction. He doesn't mind us laughing at the characters as long as we cry with them.

 

Pieces of April plays like the intersection of two road pictures. The first is almost conventional, with the Burns family making the trek through the woods and over the river to April's apartment. Along the way, they take breaks at rest stops so Mom can settle her churning stomach, and they pause for a roadkill funeral after they run over something. April's "road trip" is a little less usual - it takes her from apartment to apartment within her building as she searches for a working stove after hers gives up the ghost. She meets an affable African American couple who offer their services for a couple of hours (until they need the oven for their own bird), a vegan who can't stand the smell of burning flesh, a very weird single man with an unusually strong affection for his dog, and an elderly Chinese couple who don't speak English. Meanwhile, Bobby is out looking for some cool threads, while someone named Tyrone is trying to contact him. Except Bobby doesn't know any "Tyrone."

 

The movie highlights the versatility of Katie Holmes, who moves further away from the "girl next door" image she cultivated in Dawson's Creek. Holmes is a capable actress who's willing to take risks. And, like Jennifer Aniston in last year's The Good Girl, she has no problem accepting a pay cut to land a plum role. (The film, which was photographed using digital video, couldn't have been exceptionally expensive.) The supporting cast includes Derek Luke, who was last seen as Antwone Fisher, thespian Oliver Platt, and indie favorite Patricia Clarkson.

 

The ending of Pieces of April is conventional, but satisfying, and there's enough delightful weirdness up to the final moments that it's hard to fault Hedges for taking the easy way out. The digital video isn't the most polished medium in which to have made the movie (there are several occasions when bright lights wash out everything), but one could argue that it adds a certain grittiness to the proceedings (this comment often accompanies reviews of films made in DV). Perhaps because this is such a personal story, it's affecting and effective, and represents a solid first effort.

 

 

 

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