Pieces of April - A Movie Response


We long to be whole, but as we move through life we inevitably lose parts of ourselves along the way. And consciously or not, we spend our lives trying to tie the pieces back together. Peter Hedge’s movie, Pieces of April, reflects this torturous journey in the poignant story of a white middle-class family barely holding together at the seams. ...

They are en route to a Thanksgiving dinner being prepared by the estranged eldest daughter, April. The movie’s backdrop is the memory of the first Thanksgiving, when outsiders to North America gathered in gratitude for unlikely friendship. Echoes of mutuality, unlikely community, and hope in limitation wind through the film, with undercurrents of outsiders becoming oppressors and the meaning of forgiveness.

April and her family pay the price of being white and privileged. They are ambitious, image-oriented individualists who have trouble being honest and finding community. Her sister, Beth, is obsessively helpful and brother Jason escapes the chaos through his camera. Grandma lives in a seniors’ home and can’t remember them, or maybe she doesn’t want to. And her father, Jim, can’t give up trying to be peacemaker. Joy, the mother, wrestling with her own encounter with death, randomly sprays emotional shrapnel during the lengthy car ride from suburb to city-centre. The car is filled with animosity and bitterness.

Meanwhile, April begins the odyssey of making her first Thanksgiving meal. Tattooed hands take virgin stabs at mashing uncooked potatoes. A pierce-decorated face tears up over onions. And her boyfriend Bobbie gently cajoles her as waves of family dread threaten to abort the meal. They are an unlikely couple in the slums: a bratty white bad girl and a black boy who’s found his heart. Being in love, they are trying to turn over a new leaf. As Bobbie leaves to run a mysterious errand, April starts to cook the turkey, only to find her oven doesn’t work.

Bobbie’s world is only too familiar with disappointment, limitation and bias. April is here only because of Bobbie; it’s her first permanent address away from home, a life away from drugs, and an attempt to build a home together. There is something life-changing in their young relationship. Bobbie knows this attempt at reconciliation with her family is critical for April. April learns to let her guard down and let Bobbie help her. And Bobbie’s mysterious errand is not the drug deal you expect. As he’s trying on suits in a Salvation Army store, he tries to explain to his friend the power of love that makes you do things you never thought possible.

As April looks for a neighbour willing to share an oven, she encounters the guardedness of those trying to stay human amidst echoes of drug deals and easy escape. The door with the Jesus picture stays mute. Fellow punkers walk by without even a glance. The vegan at first agrees, but then balks at the thought of meat smells in her oven. The Chinese family doesn’t speak English. And Eugene and Evette laugh mockingly at the irony of a white girl needing the help of their “poor black asses”. An unlikely community.

April must earn the help she needs from her neighbours. Evette’s scoffing turns to kindness as April tells the tale of this possible last family meal, and then to compassion when she realizes that April is the “first pancake”. “The first attempt you wanna throw out” is how April explains her relationship with her mom. April shares more than their oven, as she gets a chance to overhear a different family dynamic with Evette and Eugene. Their world finds it much easier to include strangers.

Wayne in 5A offers to finish cooking her turkey. But his offer comes with strings attached. When April doesn’t play along, Wayne exacts revenge, and April is left with a partially cooked but mangled turkey. Almost ready to give up, she meets the Chinese family again. And in spite of language barriers, they work a miracle. To repay their kindness, April tries to tell them the story of Thanksgiving. A look of recognition steals across her young face as she begins, “There was a day when they realized they all needed each other.”

Meanwhile in the car, Joy manipulates her family’s fear of her impending death, appearing to talk about her last wishes, but ending in a callous joke on April’s bad cooking. Joy’s heart is like iron, refusing to forgive April’s past, the drugs, the roller-coaster crises. She indulges her son and spurns Beth’s pathetic attempts to be the favoured. Grandma suddenly becomes lucid and says to Joy, “I don’t know you; my daughter was full of kindness.” Joy’s edginess is a sign she is becoming an outsider. She cares less and less about the effect of her words, but is also getting past the middle-class repression because love doesn’t mean anything without truth and without suffering. And Joy is suffering in not being able to love her daughter.

Now the stage is set. Regrets and yearning. April’s artistic flair graces the table. Balloons and streamers belie her hope. The arriving family brings a dread. This movie asks us: who is your true family? How does true community come about? “They realized they all needed each other.” Difficulty and limitation can make us bitter, or they can open us up to our deep connection with each other. Love is the willingness to let go and let energy flow again and not be cut off. And it can happen in the most unlikely places. When we come to the end of ourselves, we have the chance to meet God and experience “blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” But this comfort is not comfortable. It requires suffering to remain steadfast and truth to make it real. When April decides to share the abandoned meal with the neighbours who helped her, she has learned that community is born from sharing our neediness and being open to each other. When Joy is unwittingly confronted by observing a mother scolding her young daughter, she understands that it is never too late. As the meal is shared, we get a glimpse of what Eucharist really means and of the hope that comes from breaking bread with outsiders and oppressors.

Posted: Tue - September 21, 2004 at 08:14 PM        

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