Pieces of April (2003) on Netflix
April Burns has invited her estranged family to her Manhattan apartment for Thanksgiving. Her mother Joy is dying of breast cancer, and the oven April needs for the turkey will not heat.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb7.0/1023,321 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
April Burns shares a small apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side with her boyfriend Bobby, far from the family she grew up with. She has asked her parents Jim and Joy, her younger siblings Beth and Timmy, and her grandmother Dottie to come for Thanksgiving dinner. Joy is dying of breast cancer, and those around her expect this to be her last Thanksgiving. Bobby goes out looking for a suit to wear when he meets April's relatives. In the kitchen, April finds that her oven will not heat, and with a turkey still to cook, she knocks on doors in her building and asks the other residents for help.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Pieces of April (2003)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Writer-director Peter Hedges had abandoned his script years earlier, but after his mother was diagnosed with cancer she encouraged him to keep writing; he then realized the dying mother he had already written into Pieces of April mirrored his own situation, and he only seriously finished the script after his mother died.
- The film's premise of a broken oven ruining a borrowed Thanksgiving dinner came from a true story Hedges heard, about a group of friends who borrowed an apartment to cook a turkey, found the oven didn't work, and had to go door to door begging neighbors to use theirs.
- When the film's budget collapsed from a planned $7 million to just $300,000, stars Oliver Platt and Patricia Clarkson stayed on despite being paid only $200 and $100 a day respectively, while Hedges himself took just $10 to write the script and another $10 to direct it.
- Sean Hayes phoned Hedges from the set of Will & Grace asking to play Bobby, but was told the role had to be African American and was hired for a different part, Wayne, without even needing to audition; singer Sisqo also asked for Bobby but was redirected to the role of Latrell because Hedges felt he was too short next to Katie Holmes.
- The title comes from a 1972 Three Dog Night song that Hedges originally planned to play over the ending, but composer Stephin Merritt talked him out of it and wrote an original closing song instead.
