Pieces of April

The film Pieces of April describes a wayward girl named April who leaves home because she cannot stand living with her mother, Joy. Even so, they still deeply love each other. After leaving home, April never goes back home and visits her family anymore. However, when finding out that her mother is diagnosed with cancer, April thinks that she should cease being capricious any more. In order to reconcile the broken relationship between her and her mother, April decides to invite her family to New York for a Thanksgiving dinner.

I think Pieces of April is an excellent and meaningful film. The movie shows us how to deal with family problems when we get into trouble with our family, teaches us how to love the people around us and how to express our love. The background in the film is close to our real lives, and even the scenes in the film were taken place in our daily lives. All of the actors performed very well. They mastered in expressing the characters’ emotions. Their control of the characters’ emotion is just at the right place, nothing more and nothing less.

In my view, the other feature which makes the film successful is that the film portrays the different reactions of April’s neighbors when they know that she has trouble getting a stove. In the film, April says: “once there was this one day where everyone seemed to know they needed each other.” It is true that we live in a huge and diverse society with different people coming from different countries. Within this community, we need to learn from each other, respect each other, and help each other. In the film, there is this crazy white woman, who does not show any mercy, fails to help April when she is in trouble. Fortunately, a Chinese family appears and offers help to April when she is in despair. Although the Chinese family cannot communicate well with April and do not understand the historic meaning behind Thanksgiving, they still try to help her. They warm April’s heart by showing compassion and giving out hands when April feels helpless. Living in a big environment and complex society like this, we do not know when we will get into trouble and when we will need someone’s help. There is a saying: “close neighbors are more helpful than close relatives living afar.” God says: “we live because we have love.” We should live with passion and love for love brings us together, and love makes us live harmoniously in the society.

All in all, the message behind Piece of April teaches people an invaluable lesson: people should value and appreciate more of love, understanding, trust, and tolerance that are shared among family members and our community. Because of love, people can turn the impossible into possible; with compassionate understanding of people, we can hold onto our faiths and achieve something great rather than giving up easily; by building trust among people, we will then carry the courage within ourselves to overcome all the difficulties; with tolerance bearing in our heart, we can smile hopefully even in the face of distress.