Jason C
Reviewer

      Katie Holmes' newest film, “Pieces of April”, serves as both a faithful revival for the career of one of Hollywood's most promising young stars and as a voyeuristic look into a family no different than any other. The comedy is dark, the emotions powerful and the performance by Patricia Clarkson brilliantly sarcastic. This combination allows the film to transcend simplistic Thanksgiving themes.
 
      Despite the film's opening, which involves Holmes pleasuring her boyfriend (Sisquo) in his nether regions (mostly off-camera), family members of all ages can fall into the film's emotional heartbreak when a dying mother gives her troublesome daughter one last chance to redeem herself on Thanksgiving Day.
 
      With dark comedic panache that the Coen brothers would envy, writer/director Peter Hedges (“What's Eating Gilbert Grape?”) brings together a family falling apart at the seams. Grandma is in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease, and the film treats her not despairingly or with pity, but in a realistic manner that families with older relatives can relate to. Mother (Clarkson) is dying of cancer, but refuses to give up her dark comedy, which lightens even the most troublesome situation.
 
      One particular joke made on the long car trip from the family's home to April's dilapidated New York apartment allows the film's emotional dichotomy to effectively flourish.
 
      Within a matter of seconds, the audience will transform from a state of sadness and pity to elated joy at Clarkson's perfect humor. Although Holmes gives the best performance of her career to date, it is Clarkson who provides the emotional punch and delivers an Oscar-worthy performance. This marks a phenomenal year for Clarkson, who also starred in critical favorites “The Station Agent” and “All the Real Girls”.
 
      Characters don't exist in this film simply for laughs or to be that odd, stereotypical uncle who drinks like a fish, as seen in many Thanksgiving pieces. Unlike Jodie Foster's “Home for the Holidays”, which was an uninvolving piece of family drama that never brought the viewer into the family's lives, “Pieces of April” allows each character to engage the viewer. Whether it's the odd, obsessive upstairs neighbor played brilliantly by “Will & Grace”'s Sean P. Hayes or April's father (Oliver Platt), who tries to mend the family's inevitable crisis, this is a brilliant ensemble cast of all ages.
 
      Made for less than $300,000, this film's style is understandably basic. The film's pace trods along at times, which might bore viewers who have little experience with awkward family dramatics but the simplicity is also a virtue.
 
      For those who give this heartfelt dark comedy a chance, they will discover one of Thanksgiving's greatest delicacies.