Free screenings are a kind of a mixed blessing. Yeah, you're saving some cash and getting an early look at a film you might have seen, but you're also packed in with an often mainstream, ill-informed, just-killing-time crowd with no real reason to care. "Have you ever heard of this movie?" "Oh, I recognize that dude! It's the other gay guy from Will & Grace!" "Man, this movie sucks... now I know why it was free." "Hey, it's that chick from Dawson's Creek. She's sooo hot."

I heard it all last night at a preview of Peter Hedges upcoming "Pieces of April". Hedges has proven himself to be pretty great at writing small, character-driven stories of loss and love and strained, broken relationships that need some fixin' (he wrote the novel/screenplay "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" and the screenplays for "About a Boy" & "A Map of the World"), but this is his first time behind the d.v. camera.

It's a personal story that lends itself well to his slightly shaky, occasionally grainy digital video treatment... a surprisingly touching drama, with light-hearted bits thrown in to keep you treading water. It's not a movie about big, stunning revelations, really, but about little moments and emotional healing in the face of imminent loss. As Hedges himself has said "I wanted to make a movie about how we're running out of time, and how we say - without words - thank you and I'm sorry and goodbye." This is a film that comes together in the final frames, that spends it's time setting you up for something really sweet as it fades to credits. I thought I was mildly unaffected until it all tied up so beautifully, then I realized what it took for Hedges to get us there. The writing and performances really take it a step above your average low-budget mixed-melodrama.

All the performances are solid, nothing absolutely groundbreaking, but well-played and often understated (it's hard to see another drama so soon after Mystic River, with it's emotional range and dramatic weight). I think Katie Holmes proved she can carry a film, especially when surrounded by the right people. Derek Luke (I almost wrote 'Derek Lowe'... too... much... baseball) was very, very good as her boyfriend, and Patricia Clarkson, as her mom, can really do no wrong in anything she's in. Sean Hayes (yes, from Will & Grace) has a small but eccentric role that seems a bit overplayed and slightly out of place, but he does added a needed dose of oddly comic relief.

Randomly, thong-song SisQo shows up in a small part and pulls it off (the part ... not his thong, thankfully) ... I didn't even know it was him until the credits, actually. Not that I'd recognize him, but he didn't stand out in a painful "singer-slash-actor" way that others could have. I did recognize Rusty "The Logger" Dewees, though, in a non-speaking but very cool bit-part near the end. Nice to see a familiar face and fellow Vermonter up there.

An important extra-cool thing of note... the soundtrack is by the one and only Stephin Merritt, in the form of a bunch of songs by the 6ths and the Magnetic Fields. The chosen tracks were just perfect, and really helped me connect with the film in a way that I otherwise may not have. From 69 Love Songs, "I Think I Need a New Heart", "Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side" (where the film takes place), and "Epitaph for My Heart" are all in there, plus a song or two I didn't recognize but were unmistakably Mr. Merritt.

Looks like Nonesuch Records will be releasing the soundtrack next month, and it will include the previously released Magnetic Fields and 6ths songs along with five brand new MF tracks : "All I Want to Know," "Dreams Anymore," �Heather Heather", "Stray with Me", and "One April Day," which was written for the movie. Very cool.

P.S. Hey, as long as we're on the subject of upcoming movies... get thee over to the apple site immediately and download the amazing new trailer, in glorious quicktime, for Tim Burton's next film "Big Fish". Burton is back, ladies and gentlemen, and in a big, big way. Looks like he's got a great story and an incredible cast... this film should rightly erase all memory of that silly monkey movie. This promises to be one hell of a Christmas present.

posted by brad at 10:17 AM | direct link | rss (1:2) | |