He’s not inside The piano lesson (now on Netflix), but we’ll start with Denzel Washington anyway. This is the third August Wilson play that Washington has helped adapt for film – he produced Ma Rainey’s black backgroundand directed, produced and starred in Fences – and this time, he made it a family affair. Younger son Malcolm Washington directs, and older son John David Washington (Principle, BlackKkKlansman) stars. The latter and his co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and Ray Fisher reprise their roles from the play on Broadway in 2022, with Danielle Deadwyler (Until) completing a very talented cast. So it’s no surprise that this adaptation lives up to its talents, ensuring that our eyes stay glued to the screen.

The bottom line: The lynching attempt was inevitable. While a white family enjoys fireworks, three black men, accompanied by a young boy, steal an ornately carved piano from the family home. They escape, but one man stays behind and ends up running into the woods while white men burn his cabin. Twenty-five years later, this young boy, Boy Willie (John David Washington), is an adult. He and his buddy Lymon (Fisher) transport a truckload of watermelons from Mississippi to Pittsburgh. Boy Willie saved money. He will earn more money by selling the watermelons. And he’ll get even more money, altogether enough to buy his own farmland, if he can convince his sister Berniece (Deadwyler) to sell that piano. But it’s a big ask, and he knows it. The year is 1936.

This piano. It symbolizes both the past and the future: the sculptures illustrate the history of their family, the Charles family, which dates back approximately 100 years, to their time as slaves in the Deep South; This is a one-of-a-kind priceless heirloom with deep sentimental value. . Berniece can’t bring herself to play it anymore, but you can understand why she fights so passionately against her brother to keep him. But Boy Willie is right: this thing is about the past, and if you sell it, you can create your own future. A black man owning land has a level of control and ownership over his life that few black men had in America. He is persistent. He pokes, cajoles, and bullies his sister, but she holds the line firmly and angrily. “If he came here thinking of selling this piano, then he came here for nothing,” she spits.

The boy Willie knows very well that he is attacking a hornet’s nest. He might even enjoy it a little. He and Berniece have an audience for their conflict, an audience that eventually manifests itself in the form of participants: she lives with their uncle Doaker (Jackson), who is a reserved and reasonable man, wise enough not to come between them. Her brother Wining Boy (Michael Potts), so named for his propensity to drink, comes to visit; He and Doaker played a key role in freeing the piano from its original owners. Avery Brown (Corey Hawkins) is a local pastor who likes Berniece, although she considers him more of a platonic friend. Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith) is Berniece’s daughter, who doesn’t know the story behind the piano. The man from the cold open, who didn’t escape with the piano? This is Boy Charles (Stephan James), who is dead but still has an important presence in this story. And speaking of ghosts, Sutter, the man who owned the Charles family as slaves, seems to haunt them, appearing and disappearing upstairs as tension within the family escalates. Something has to give here. Something.

What films will this remind you of? : It is very safe to say that if Fences And Ma Rainey’s black background struck a chord with you, The piano lesson will be, too — they are all selected in Wilson’s 10-game Pittsburgh round, which Washington hopes to adapt in its entirety.

Performances to watch: John David Washington is often eerily reminiscent of his father – read: very charismatic, flashy without being show-off – and Deadwyler is brilliantly unwavering in his fury. But Jackson defies expectations in a role that’s all about making the most of his moments, asking him to tame his usual over-the-top persona and be the film’s fundamental force.

Memorable dialogues: “It’s not dirt,” Boy Willie’s father explains to him. “It is land.”

Sex and skin: None.

Our opinion: The piano lesson doesn’t break the mold of adaptations of theatrical productions – it feels absolutely “stagey” in the sense that the performances are over-the-top, the sets are minimized, and the emphasis is on dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. And that dialogue is extraordinary – the power of Wilson’s writing and premise is undeniable, and the Washingtons pay deep respect to the material, which is bold and muscular enough to rise above the over-the-top stage-ready performances and command attention. Words carry the most weight here, bolstering the cast from top to bottom, from Jackson’s understated expressions to Hawkins and Fisher’s surprisingly sensitive and complex characterizations.

Frankly, that’s pretty much what we should expect. The cast delivers rousing performances; long holds increase tension; layers of text with subtext in a very deep, subtly provocative and emotionally and intellectually engaging way. Although Malcolm Washington struggles to incorporate the supernatural component of the story – these moments sometimes feel like a clumsy haunted house movie – there’s no doubt that it’s necessary, as the fractured Charles family heads, almost chaotically, towards a necessary emotional exorcism. The piano lesson may not be perfect, but there’s no denying its power.

Our call: The piano lesson‘s themes are as bold as its performances. Spread it.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.