Pieces of April

Hedges's intelligent and touching farce, Pieces of April, makes an important contribution to a small and insignificant subgenre: Thanksgiving Day failure. It does so by raising the bar.Read Full Review »

This film explores what low-budget films do best: the quirkiness of character, and slightly off-kilter comedy.Read Full Review »

It turns out to be an especially warm comedy with a hidden heart. It's a film whose humor has feeling behind it because writer-director Peter Hedges doesn't let his comedy overpower an understanding of how emotionally weighted family situations are always going to be.Read Full Review »

Belongs, wholly and completely, to Clarkson, who delivers Joy's mordant asides and withering observations with a flawless balance of tartness and vulnerability.Read Full Review »

For a movie about community and forgiveness, family and grace, Pieces of April is refreshingly unsappy.Read Full Review »

Despite its themes of terminal illness, dysfunctional families, and the need to heal old wounds, the film spends more time provoking laughter than tears.Read Full Review »

Despite its flaws, Pieces of April has a lot of joy and quirkiness; it's well-intentioned in its screwy way, with flashes of human insight, and actors who can take a moment and make it glow.Read Full Review »

Holmes nails every laugh without missing the dramatic nuances. She makes April and her movie well worth knowing.Read Full Review »

Although Pieces of April doesn't quite stick together as a whole -- in some places it's conventional and a bit contrived, particularly the ending, which feels rushed and a little tough to buy -- Hedges peppers it with enough wonderful moments that you can't help warming up to it.Read Full Review »

The quaint racial blinders are really on the eyes of the filmmaker, Peter Hedges, who shoves his characters into the narrowest of sitcom slots and seals them there.Read Full Review »