Pieces Of April

In this charming, unsentimental Thanksgiving comedy, Katie Holmes must enlist her Manhattan neighbors to help roast the turkey for her dying mom.

In "Pieces of April," the directorial debut of the gifted novelist and screenwriter Peter Hedges, a young woman who has never quite fit in with her family -- she's the April of the title, played by Katie Holmes -- coaxes them out of their comfy suburban environs to have Thanksgiving dinner at her small, cheerful dump of a flat in Manhattan. April's relationship has always been particularly prickly with her mother, Joy (Patricia Clarkson); certain that they won't be able to stomach April's cooking, the family loads up on doughnuts for their drive down to the city, and Joy remarks that she doesn't have a single pleasant memory of April's childhood or adolescence.

Hedges wrote the novel on which "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" was based, and he adapted the screenplay as well. He also wrote the fine script for Paul and Chris Weitz's "About a Boy." He gives "Pieces of April" a nice feel, basting it with warmth even as he shies away from sentimentality.

By Stephanie Zacharek

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