Pieces of April Critic Reviews

The movie ends with a sentimental vision of unity that, admittedly, warmed this weary moviegoer's heart. If that vision was earned, I might even have melted. Read the full review

Despite its flaws, Pieces of April has a lot of joy and quirkiness; it's well-intentioned in its screwy way, with flashes of human insight, and actors who can take a moment and make it glow. Read the full review

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. Read the full review

It turns out to be an especially warm comedy with a hidden heart. It's a film whose humor has feeling behind it because writer-director Peter Hedges doesn't let his comedy overpower an understanding of how emotionally weighted family situations are always going to be. Read the full review

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

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

Both heartfelt and tough-minded.Read the full review

This warm and scruffy film may strike some as a mere period piece, but it's juiced with recognizable family trauma and garnished with a quirky sensibility -- it's the portrait of a group of people we come to care about. Read the full review

Hedges's intelligent and touching farce, Pieces of April, makes an important contribution to a small and insignificant subgenre: Thanksgiving Day failure. It does so by raising the bar. Read the full review