AGW Entertainment reporter Lynn B. saw a new family film

PIECES OF APRIL

UA Pictures

You know how Thanksgiving is usually a family stress-fest? In Pieces of April, Katie Holmes gets it full tilt. Her oven won't work, her folks haven't met her African-American boyfriend, her mom hates her but happens to be dying….Katie's dilemma makes holidays at your house look like a Norman Rockwell painting!

April Burns (Katie Holmes), who dresses a little like a punked-out Pippi Longstocking, has invited her whole estranged family to Thanksgiving dinner at her place. She and her boyfriend Bobby (Derek Luke,) get up early in their dilapidated New York tenement to prepare the turkey. Master Chefs they ain't! They stuff a whole onion and celery stalks into the cavity before sewing it up. April attempts to mash raw potatoes and empties out her oven, which is usually just used for storage! This is all hilarious. April has to run around the building carrying her turkey to ask her various wacky neighbors to use their stoves! One couple is nice but too gourmet and t.v.'s Sean Hayes is a snooty neighbor with a new stove who takes April's turkey hostage when she isn't prissy and thankful enough to him.

Meanwhile, Bobby is out looking for a new suit to impress April's parents and gets beaten up! April's suburban family starts driving into the city. Mom complains about April who is obviously the family rebel with a history of shoplifting, arson and drugs. In the process you learn that mom is dying of cancer and this may be the last time the family gets together.

The family is almost scared off by April's slum neighborhood but, finally they do get together to make things right.

This is a wonderful little film. Performances are great. Patricia Clarkson is funny and sad as the dying mom. Oliver Platt is great as April's "love you, despite everything" dad, Derek Luke is super as a super-devoted boyfriend, Sean Hayes is hilarious, actors playing April's other neighbors and bro and sis are also top notch. Katie is perfect as April as well.

This is one of the few dysfunctional family holiday flicks I've seen that is totally "real". No big joke disaster that doesn't ring true. All the relationships are believable. There is a great message about time running out here. We had all better make peace with loved ones because a time will come when those relationships will be permanently broken by death. But, hey! This film isn't a big downer. It's very funny and warm. You could do much worse than checking out Katie Holmes in a film role that can, hopefully, ditch her Joey Potter persona so she can move on.

Rated: PG-13

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