You’ve gotta love that Denzel Washington has made it a family affair to bring August Wilson’s acclaimed “Pittsburgh Cycle” of stageplays to the big screen. Denzel produce the recent adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and directed Fences himself. For the latest, Netflix’s The Piano Lesson, Denzel is again back in a producer role while his son Malcolm Washington makes his directorial debut. His other son, John David Washington, stars in the film, while other members of the family make small appearances. The result is a film that feels like a true labor of love, as the Washingtons present Wilson’s powerhouse generational drama and ghost story to a new audience.
For Malcolm Washington and any director attempting to adapt a play for the screen, the challenge is crafting it in such a way that it feels cinematic and not at all stagey. Fortunately, Washington has the help of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway revival’s cast who are also some of the best movie stars working today. Samuel L. Jackson returns as Doaker Charles, the reasoned, level-headed voice within the Charles home. Jackson has been involved with this story since the original 1987 stage version, so his comfort in handling Wilson’s weighty material is evident. He’s a soothing fixture even when not on screen, as Doaker provides the bulk of the narration, which fleshes out through flashbacks the history of the Charles clan.
Also returning is John David Washington as Boy Willie, a volatile presence looking to improve his lot by selling a prized family heirloom, a piano that was first stolen from a white family of slave owners by their father, who was killed for the crime. New to the production is Danielle Deadwyler as Boy Willie’s sister, Berniece, who refuses to let go of the piano because of what it means to their family. Their father died for it, and their mother literally put her blood, sweat, and tears into cleaning it for many years after. Others reprising their roles include Ray Fisher as Doaker’s simple but good-hearted friend Lymon, and Michael Potts as Doaker’s brother Wining Boy Charles.
Co-written with Mudbound writer Virgil Williams, The Piano Lesson goes a long way in opening up Wilson’s story which mostly takes place in the Charles living room. That’s simply not going to work for a two-hour-plus movie with a lot of potent dialogue and charged interactions about race, ghosts of the past, and hopes for the future. An opening sequence, heightened by action and violence, shows the theft of the piano many years earlier that forms the basis of this conflict. But in 1936 Pittsburgh, shortly after The Great Depression, Boy Willie wants to sell the dusty old item, let go of the past tragedies, and buy the plot of land that his ancestors toiled on for so long. He wants to let go of the past, but Berniece, who is seeing ghosts at every turn, longs to hold on to it.
The ghosts are both figurative and literal. The Piano Lesson is also a haunted house story, and Washington handles the spookier elements well. They don’t always jibe perfectly with the intense family squabbles and moments of laughter and song, however. But you accept that because the talent is so overwhelming. Deadwyler’s performance as Berniece starts off as a slow simmer but as the movie progresses you can feel the heat turning up until she absolutely explodes in the final act. Berniece shoulders so much of the burden as a mother trying to protect her daughter, while still grieving the death of her husband, an act she blames on Boy Willie who is acting a fool under her roof. She’s been holding everything back for so long, including a new chance at love with Avery (Corey Hawkins), a preacher who has his thoughts about those spirits, too. Washington is good as Deadwyler’s opposite, but someone needs to tell him that acting for the screen is different than acting for the stage. You don’t have to yell everything so that people in the back can hear what you’re saying.
It’s an ambitious plan to try and adapt all of The Pittsburgh Cycle, and to do so would mean seven more movies are on the way. But if we just look at the three already completed with such heart and soul by the Washingtons, including The Piano Lesson, who better to be entrusted to do it?
The Piano Lesson is streaming now on Netflix.
