![]() She turns - in some of the film’s funniest scenes - to a good-humored black couple downstairs (Lillias White, Isiah Whitlock), who frown at her white-girl helplessness. The family journeys toward New York City, making stops for junk food and to bury road kill along the way, as April confronts her limited cooking skills and an oven previously used only for storage. Weed-smoking photographer brother Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.) is along for the lark, while grandma (Alice Drummond) is sliding into senility. Joy’s well-intentioned husband (Oliver Platt) seems alone in his willingness to give April a second chance, while self-righteous Beth (Alison Pill) masks the resentment she feels for her older sister with over-protectiveness toward her mother. The film’s liveliest humor is found in the barbed observations of this difficult, angry woman - deliciously delivered in Clarkson’s lovely performance - and in her wicked delight in making fun of her cosseting family’s solemnity and concern for her condition. ![]() suburban home, Burns family members steel themselves to share in this meal, anticipating disaster from the petulant April.Īpril’s mother Joy (Patricia Clarkson) is in the terminal stages of cancer and is stoically dreading the encounter with her errant daughter. Setting up the action and sketching the characters with economy and precision, Hedges opens on family black sheep April Burns (Katie Holmes) and her African-American boyfriend Bobby (Derek Luke) in their seedy Manhattan walk-up, chaotically preparing for Thanksgiving dinner.
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