Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to tie a bowtie! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the family drama “The Piano Lesson,” the creeptastic “Heretic” and the Cillian Murphy in “Small Things Like These.”
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SYNOPSIS: A story of legacy and spirituality, in “The Piano Lesson,” starring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler, and now playing in theatres, a treasured heirloom reveals a family’s past and possibly its future.
CAST: August Wilson, Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Danielle Deadwyler, and Corey Hawkins. Directed by Malcolm Washington.
REVIEW: “The Piano Lesson,” based on the 1987 stage play by August Wilson, isn’t about practicing scales or learning to read music. It’s a story about honoring ancestors, generational trauma, self-determination and facing the ghosts that haunt.
The story begins in 1911 Mississippi with the Charles Brothers and the theft of an ornate upright piano from the home of former slave owners, the Sutter family. Decorated with carvings on the front and sides, we later learn that the piano’s art is a history of the Charles family, carved by an enslaved relative.
Cut to 1936 Pittsburgh. The piano now rests in the front room of the home of Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson), his niece Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler), her young daughter Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith), and a ghost Berniece is convinced lives upstairs.
The relative calm of their lives is upended when Berniece ‘s brother Boy Willie (John David Washington) arrives from Mississippi with Lymon (Ray Fisher) with a plan to make money to buy the land where his family had once been enslaved. Trouble is, his plan involves selling the piano and Berniece will not hear of it.
The story is layered, and crisply complex, a tangle of emotion, the paranormal and family dynamics. In his directorial debut Malcolm Washington opens up the story with some brief flashbacks to Mississippi and some outside scenes, but the action here mostly takes place in the Charles house. It lends a stage bound feel to the film, and yet, the topflight performances and dialogue never allow “The Piano Lesson” to become overly theatrical in its claustrophobic setting.
It’s about the words, the ideas, and characters so carefully written each and every one of them could be the star of their own story. As it is, it’s an ensemble, that spreads the wealth, allowing each actor to shine. As the easy-going Lymon, Fisher has a playful moment when he buys a suit and some ill-fitting shoes from Wining Boy (a great Michael Potts). Washington is all kinetic energy and dreams for the future, but it is Deadwyler whose presence captivates. As a grieving widow and single mother, her character is the film’s beating heart and has the widest arc, leading up to an intense crescendo in the film’s final moments.
“The Piano Lesson” is a period piece, but the topics raised by Wilson’s script remain powerful and timely.
It’s hard not to watch “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the vibrant adaptation of August Wilson’s play of the same name, now streaming on Netflix, without feeling a sense of loss. It’s Chadwick Boseman’s last performance and the life he brings to the role of ambitious trumpet player Levee acts as a poignant reminder of a career cut tragically short.
Set in the roaring 1920’s Chicago, Viola Davis plays the titular character, a real-life musical trailblazer known as “Mother of the Blues.” On a sweltering day in a dank basement recording studio, the band, pianist Toledo (Glynn Turman), trombonist Cutler (Colman Domingo), and string bassist Slow Drag (Michael Potts) and Levee, rehearse as they wait for the fashionably late Ma to arrive.
The heat, claustrophobia, frayed egos and twitchy Levee’s insistence on changing tried-and-true musical arrangements, fuel a war of words and wills as they attempt to put Ma’s signature “Black Bottom” song to disc.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” theatrical roots are very much on display in director George C. Wolfe (a five-time Tony winner) and screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s adaptation. The presentation is energetic but simple; a showcase for the performances. Like bandleader Cutler says, “a-one, a-two, a-you know what to do.”
And they sure do. The core cast is uniformly excellent.
Domingo is understated but powerful as the bandleader, heading off interpersonal crisis with a few well-chosen words. Turman, recently seen as the stately Doctor Senator, consigliere to Chris Rock’s crime boss, on “Fargo,” is the sage of the group, gives Toledo’s monologues gravitas as he speaks of racial pride and personal sovereignty.
Davis is flamboyant, a diva who uses her demands to maintain control over her band and respect from her white producers (Jeremy Shamos and Jonny Coyne). “They don’t care nothin’ about me,” she says. “All they want is my voice. I learned that and they are going to treat me the way I want to be treated no matter how much it hurts them.” It’s a bravura performance that’s almost as loud and proud as the garish make Ma has slathered on her face.
Ma Rainey’s name may be on the marquee but the most memorable character is Boseman’s Levee. Ambitious, he wants to leave behind the sideman gigs and form his own band, Levee Green and His Foot Stompers, but his bluster hides a deep well of pain that overflows during the steamy afternoon recording session. Levee is a tragic character, a classically flawed man straining against the weight of personal trauma, hoping that his talent will bring him the respect he needs to survive. The distressing effects of racial discrimination are written large on Boseman’s expressive face, informing every twist and turn in his character’s journey. It’s a skillful and heartbreaking performance that doesn’t just hint at his great talent, but lays it bare. It’s the kind of performance, filled with fury and frustration, that makes you hungry for more. Sadly, it’s his swan song.
Although set in the 1920s and written in the 1980s, the ideas and the anger in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” feels of the moment and indispensable. The dialogue crackles and the context resonates because Wilson’s source material has not only stood the test of time, but transcends it.
“Fences,” August Wilson’s rumination on race, masculinity, betrayal and dissatisfaction, won four Tony Awards, including best actor for James Earl Jones, when it first played on Broadway in 1983. The 2010 revival was also lauded, winning Tonys for Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, who now reunite in a big screen version of the popular play.Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, Washington (who also directs) is Troy Maxson, a former Negro League baseball player now working as a garbage man. Each Friday he turns over his $76 weekly paycheck to wife Rose Maxson (Viola Davis) before his co-worker and best friend Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson) blow off some steam with a bottle of gin. Troy drunkenly tells wild stories about beating up the Devil and lectures about the virtues of self-reliance and responsibility to himself and his family. Always teetering on the edge of a blow-up, he’s a thin-skinned man in a world that is changing rapidly around him, who builds a literal and metaphorical fence between him and the outside world.
Troy has a combative relationship with Lyons (Russell Hornsby), his son from a previous marriage, and a strict, disciplinarian rapport with Cory (Jovan Adepo), his youngest who still lives at home. Tension builds as Cory decides he wants to take a football scholarship in favour of learning a trade.
It’s tempting to suggest that “Fences” doesn’t have a plot. Certainly it presents a slice of Troy and Rose’s life that isn’t necessarily driven by story in the strictest sense, but the through lines from scene to scene create a loose narrative that paints a vivid picture of a man whose resentments and bitterness will soon have a palpable effect on everyone around him.
As a director Washington doesn’t do much to open the story up. It takes place on a handful of sets and feels very much like a play, but when the words are this good there isn’t a need to spice it up with flashy production work. Washington focuses on the script and the performances, allowing the power of Wilson’s ideas carry the movie. “Fences” may be set in 1957 but the Troy’s sense of fighting against almost constant injustice feels as timely as it ever has.
Towering in the center of all this is Washington’s performance. His Troy is beaten down but not beaten. He’s hardened to the cruel realities of his life, that integration in baseball came just a few years too late for him to make a go of it, that hope is for dreamers too lazy to get a real job. He settles into the character with remarkable ease, erasing any residual memory of his big movie star turns in films like “American Gangster” or “Flight.” It is as though we’re seeing him for the first time, and yet, to many his story will feel all too familiar.
He finds his equal in Davis who brings a quiet dignity to the often put upon Rose. Her transformation from stay-at-home wife to independent woman as she realizes the eighteen years spent with Troy have not meant what she thought is as remarkable as it is subtle.
As Mr. Bono New York stage and screen actor Henderson rounds out the main cast in a performance brimming with wit and wisdom.
As a showcase for ideas and performances “Fences” hits a home run, offering fodder for Oscar talk and intellectual discourse. As a movie going experience, however, it feels a tad overlong. As much of a pleasure as it is to watch Washington, Davis and Henderson interact, the film loses steam as it enters the final third.
