Pieces Of April will leave movie-goers pondering that age-old question about the universe: Where the heck is Patricia Clarkson's Academy Award?

Clarkson and Katie Holmes star as a mother and daughter at loggerheads in Pieces Of April, a breathtakingly good family drama/comedy that was a big hit at last fall's Toronto film festival.

Holmes is April, the black sheep of a suburban family. She has made a life for herself, sort of, in New York City, and has decided to invite her family for Thanksgiving dinner. Never mind that she has a grotty little apartment. Never mind that she can't cook. Never mind that they don't really want to come to her house for dinner. She really wants this to work.

Then she discovers that her stove is broken.

On their side, April's family drives into the city with huge misgivings. There's her snotty little sister (Alison Pil), her brother (John Gallagher Jr.), her senile grandma (Alice Drummond), her patient Dad (Oliver Platt), and her mom, who is another kind of patient -- she has breast cancer. Don't get out your hankies just yet. As mom, a woman who may be celebrating her last Thanksgiving ever, Clarkson is bitchy, funny and terrifying. What a performance.

While the family bickers in the car, April runs around her apartment building, desperately trying to find someone with a working stove. Her boyfriend (Derek Luke) goes off to buy a suit for the holiday event. All is chaos.

How April gets the dinner made and how her family get themselves to her house is the story of Pieces Of April. It's a cooking story and a road story that meet in the end.

And thanks to a brilliant script and spot-on performances, Pieces Of April turns out to be a perfect film about families and what makes them work. Or not work. Witty, wise and fully engaging, this is a must-see proposition that was made with no budget in about 14 days.

Filmmaker Peter Hedges wrote Pieces Of April after he got the news that his own mother had cancer. He says of the film, "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." And he did.

(This film is rated PG)

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