Metacritic-Rezensionen

A film to savor and to be thankful for.

A Thanksgiving family reunion comedy that sparkles with acerbic wit, original characters and genuine heart.

As the debate between digital video and film rages on, Pieces of April proves a point that many people overlook in the DV/film debate. If you have a great story, a great script and a great cast, DV will work as well as film onscreen.

Hedges keeps everything in balance: The sadness and frivolity all seem to be part of the same emotional continuum. He’s made a lingeringly poignant little movie.

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

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

A modestly scaled film on every level, but Hedges and company manage to ring true on almost all the material's sweet and sour notes.

Though Pieces Of April comes together with improbable grace, Hedges evokes unearned tears from a premise that's already loaded from the start. Like Holmes, he serves up boxed stuffing and canned cranberries, then fishes for compliments to the chef.

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.

Manipulative and cloying, Pieces of April turns into something altogether creepier, even pathological, whenever first-time filmmaker Peter Hedges (screenwriter of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and "About a Boy") brings up race.