Pieces of April

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, ...more

From What's Eating Gilbert Grape to his adaptation of About a Boy, Peter Hedges has specialized in showing the warmth and humanity of oddball outsiders. April (Katie Holmes) most certainly fits into that mode as the black sheep oldest daughter who has invited her suburban family into the big city to make Thanksgiving dinner for them -- even though she has no clue how to cook. The scenes in the apartment building are erratic in quality. For every good scene between April and her kind ...more