April must earn the help she needs from her neighbours. Evette’s scoffing turns to kindness as April tells the tale of this possible last family meal, and then to compassion when she realizes that April is the “first pancake”. “The first attempt you wanna throw out” is how April explains her relationship with her mom. April shares more than their oven, as she gets a chance to overhear a different family dynamic with Evette and Eugene. Their world finds it much easier to include strangers.

Wayne in 5A offers to finish cooking her turkey. But his offer comes with strings attached. When April doesn’t play along, Wayne exacts revenge, and April is left with a partially cooked but mangled turkey. Almost ready to give up, she meets the Chinese family again. And in spite of language barriers, they work a miracle. To repay their kindness, April tries to tell them the story of Thanksgiving. A look of recognition steals across her young face as she begins, “There was a day when they realized they all needed each other.”

Meanwhile in the car, Joy manipulates her family’s fear of her impending death, appearing to talk about her last wishes, but ending in a callous joke on April’s bad cooking. Joy’s heart is like iron, refusing to forgive April’s past, the drugs, the roller-coaster crises. She indulges her son and spurns Beth’s pathetic attempts to be the favoured. Grandma suddenly becomes lucid and says to Joy, “I don’t know you; my daughter was full of kindness.” Joy’s edginess is a sign she is becoming an outsider. She cares less and less about the effect of her words, but is also getting past the middle-class repression because love doesn’t mean anything without truth and without suffering. And Joy is suffering in not being able to love her daughter.

Now the stage is set. Regrets and yearning. April’s artistic flair graces the table. Balloons and streamers belie her hope. The arriving family brings a dread. This movie asks us: who is your true family? How does true community come about? “They realized they all needed each other.” Difficulty and limitation can make us bitter, or they can open us up to our deep connection with each other. Love is the willingness to let go and let energy flow again and not be cut off. And it can happen in the most unlikely places. When we come to the end of ourselves, we have the chance to meet God and experience “blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” But this comfort is not comfortable. It requires suffering to remain steadfast and truth to make it real. When April decides to share the abandoned meal with the neighbours who helped her, she has learned that community is born from sharing our neediness and being open to each other. When Joy is unwittingly confronted by observing a mother scolding her young daughter, she understands that it is never too late. As the meal is shared, we get a glimpse of what Eucharist really means and of the hope that comes from breaking bread with outsiders and oppressors.