FAMILY REUNION: An interview with Pieces of April writer/director Peter Hedges and star Katie Holmes. By Warren Curry 10/15/03

Katie Holmes and Peter Hedges

(Read the review of Pieces of April)

Making a movie isn't easy, regardless of what impressive credentials you may bring to the table as a first-time filmmaker. Just ask Academy Award nominated screenwriter Peter Hedges (About A Boy, What's Eating Gilbert Grape), the writer/director of the United Artists' release, Pieces of April, who set up his directorial debut three different times, only to watch it fall apart on each occasion. After having bigger budgets -- and the luxuries that come with more money -- dangled in front of his face, Hedges ultimately made Pieces of April on a shoestring, shooting with digital video cameras on a tight 16-day schedule. "I wrote it to make it myself," comments Hedges at a recent roundtable interview. "Once I wrote it, there was enough interest that it looked like it was going to be a bigger film. In some sense, when we ultimately made it the way we made it, it got back to what it originally was going to be."

An intimate, touching film, which focuses on a "normal" suburban family's Thanksgiving day journey to visit their eccentric, outcast daughter in New York City, Pieces of April seamlessly blends sharp, understated comedy and weighty emotional drama, occasionally in the same scene. The idea for the film, it turns out, came from two vastly different sources. "I was looking a long time for a story that would throw a bunch of people together who normally wouldn't be together," explains Hedges. "I'd heard about this group of young people who went to cook a turkey and the oven didn't work, so they had to go around the apartment building and borrow somebody else's. I just thought it was a great way to put people together."

The other form of artistic inspiration derived from an incredibly difficult experience in the director's life. "Five years ago, my mom called me and told me that she had cancer," says Hedges. "This was of course devastating news, and the next year and half, my sister and brothers and I flew back and forth (to Iowa) to take care of her. She then passed away. During that time she was sick, she also said that we had to go on with our lives, which was important, and in my case she really wanted to me to keep writing." He continues, "I found in my computer a file that was for a movie idea -- it was about the girl trying to cook the turkey. What surprised me was the reason she was trying to make the turkey was because her mother had cancer. When I saw that, I called my mom and told her what I had found, and she said that sounds like a story you're supposed to write." Although Pieces of April is obviously a very personal work, it shouldn't be viewed as an autobiographical piece. "It's truly a work of the imagination -- it isn't my story and my mom's story," mentions the director.

Starring Katie Holmes ("Dawson's Creek"), Oliver Platt (Bulworth, "The West Wing"), Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher), and the ubiquitous Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent), the problems that plagued the project didn't deter the cast, who gathered a sense of communal strength from the pitfalls. "When the movie kept falling apart and people kept sticking around, it was really rare," observes Holmes, who stars as April, the proverbial black sheep of her family. "When we finally got to the stage of actually filming the movie, we'd all come so far… there was this sense of we're going to fight for this. It was very collaborative, and we wanted to do a good job for Peter because we were all so inspired by him. Peter is a lovely director, and I think he brings out the best in people."

Playing firmly against type, Holmes', who is still emerging from the enormous shadow cast by her role in the television series/cultural phenomena known as "Dawson's Creek," good girl image was considered a blessing by Hedges. "I use the preconception that a lot of people have (of Holmes)," remarks the director. "Factor in the fact that this girl has so much more depth, and so much more intelligence, and so much more humor than that TV show ("Dawson's Creek"?) would allow her to demonstrate…then you dress her, you change her look, you alter her. You still have at her core a good girl who's lost instead of a bad girl who's just nasty. To me, it makes you love her more."

And for Holmes' attraction to the project? "I was a big fan of Peter's and What's Eating Gilbert Grape before I read the script, and I heard the script was very good. Then I read it, and it was very moving, and I thought it was very genuine in its representation of family life," notes the actress. "I thought the whole origin of the script was beautiful, and I thought it was funny. I liked the characters, and that Joy wasn't this sweet lady that you would instantly cry for -- it was deeper than that." Setting the film on Thanksgiving seemed, to Holmes, like a logical day for this story to take place. "It's relatable to me, because with my friends and my family, it seems the holidays are always full of such chaos," she comments. "It is appropriate to have this movie on a holiday. That's when I think people's feelings and emotions are highlighted, and they remember what's important."

Thematically, the film deals with material that could easily go the way of sappy manipulation in the wrong hands. To both the director and his star, it was important that the film communicate these emotions with a subtle hand. "I get tired of movies that tell me how to feel or think," states Holmes. "I know what's going to happen in the first two seconds and it's predictable, and yet they still tell me how I'm supposed to feel about things." Hedges elaborates on this shared opinion. "I have a very strong love of movies that respect their audience; that try to not overstate everything." He continues, "I certainly don't like it in stories when I'm told things that I can figure out on my own. For me, this movie more than any other I've written has become more about what I don't say and what you don't see, and understanding that if you see this scene butt up against that scene, what happened in the cut between this scene and this scene you'll fill in based on what you see."

Using these comments as a launching pad, this reporter couldn't help but diplomatically ask the director about the one shot toward the conclusion of the film (which I'll keep under wraps) that did strike me as a connect-the-dots moment in a film that otherwise steers clear of such obvious territory. Hoping that my question was delivered with the appropriate amount of tact and respect (after all, I'm a huge fan of the film), Hedges' response admirably exhibits no defensive traces whatsoever…which serves as some assurance that I didn't accidentally leave my manners at home. "That's a fair question," he begins. "Something singular needed to happen. I think there are times when telling a story sincerely, where you say,'This is the moment where she turns around.' You pick those moments. That's one of those judgment calls, where you go, 'How far do you take it?'"

As Hedges stands to exit the roundtable, I make sure to clarify to him that my opinion of his film is a very positive one. "Believe me, I make these big pronouncements," responds the director, shaking his head in understanding, "and it's nice for somebody to say, 'Then why did you do that?'" Going on a bit further, Hedges arrives at one very simple point that we can both emphatically agree on, "If I had to stay on a moment too long, Patty Clarkson doing anything on her own for an extended period of time makes me very happy."

Pieces of April opens in New York and Los Angeles on October 17 and will expand to more cities in the weeks to follow. It's a crowd-pleasing film that reveals its emotional depth in an intelligent, humorous, and extremely entertaining manner.


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