The True Meaning of Thanksgiving
"The first pancake," is how April describes herself ("the one you throw away"—a neighbor helpfully finishes her thought) in relation to her family and particularly to her sardonic and hypercritical mother, Joy (Clarkson). The Goth girl with the piercings and tattoos can't do anything right in their eyes, and as Thanksgiving dawns, it appears her streak for letting down her kin won't go unbroken as she discovers her oven doesn't work. With Bobby out running a mysterious errand, April is left to discover the true meaning of Thanksgiving when she has to summon up all of her moxie and overcome the urban dweller's automatic distrust of their neighbors to find someone in her building willing to let her roast her bird.

Meanwhile, the Burns family sets out away from their comfortable environment for the journey to the urban jungle and it is immediately evident that no one, save possibly April's dad Jim (Oliver Platt), wants to go. Younger daughter Beth (Alison Pill), her mother's favorite, a sanctimonious child whose excellent grades and unctuous behavior make her the anti April, tries to talk her mother into canceling the trip. Son and budding photographer Timmy (John Gallagher Jr) is merely along to continue the two tasks Joy has assigned him—documenting her illness and the intact family's last days with his camera and rolling his mother's medicinal joints. Even Joy's Alzheimer's inflicted mother (Alice Drummond) senses there's something wrong with this road trip when she's told who they are going to visit, "April? I thought she was dead." Joy can only recite the litany of April's sins, which include shoplifting, vandalism, and once trimming her baby brother's bangs with lit matches, without ever pausing to consider that her hostility toward her eldest might be the cause of April's rebellion. Jim, made only too aware of loss by his wife's illness, pleads with Joy to give their daughter a chance. "We're making memories here," he says simply.

Pieces of April is not a perfect film by any means. Parts of it, particularly as April meets some of her more eccentric neighbors on her quest to find a working oven, are overly facile with characters that are too broadly drawn. In particular, her fussy neighbor Wayne seems more like a cartoon than a real person, a flaw both in Hedges' script and an over-the-top performance by Will and Grace's Sean Hayes. Also, while it is admirable that Hedges is willing to confront issues of race with the interracial romance between April and Bobby, the subplot that leaves him waiting by a pay phone for a mysterious assignation like a typical city dwelling drug dealer is a disingenuous distraction.

Still, there are more strengths than weaknesses in this portrait of a family at a crossroads, including a well of welcome dark humor and a warm heart. And while Clarkson has been the deserved recipient of overwhelming critical accolades for a tricky performance as a not entirely likeable woman, she is not alone. The entire cast is excellent, with Holmes leaving her Dawson's Creek days firmly in the dust and Platt very affecting in his burgeoning grief. The sometimes sketchy quality of the digital video images further serves the film by infusing it with the feel of a home movie, a rendering that perfectly fits the story.

Making Memories
Peter Hedges' audio commentary is the highlight of the MGM Home Entertainment DVD. The disc, which offers both full frame and anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) versions of the film along with 5.1 Surround Sound, also includes a making of featurette, "All the Pieces Together," and the film's theatrical trailer. Though Hedges goes on at length about some of the challenges that faced the production (including financing dropping out several times), he is at his best when he talks about what went into penning his script. His own mother was dying of breast cancer when he started writing the film. While he makes it clear that the Burns family bears no relation to his own, it is also true that making this movie is one way he came to terms with his mother's death and he's quite moving on the subject.

That phrase of Jim Burns, "making memories," is one that Hedges uses more than once in his commentary to explain the inspiration for Pieces of April. He certainly fulfilled his mission with this delicate work, the latest worthy addition to the holiday movie genre and a film we can all give thanks for.