4 Stars

August Wilson was one of the most ambitious playwrights of all time, and The Piano Lesson is one of his best, most complex and fully formed works. Previously adapted into a television film by stage legend George C. Wolfe, the new adaptation is produced by Denzel Washington-who has plans to adapt all ten of Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle-and directed by his son, Malcolm, with his other son, John David, in a central role as Willie Boy. As the story begins, it is 1936, and Willie has come north from down south, with his friend Lymon, to get his family’s piano from his sister Bernice. Pittsburgh, in this tale, has a commune of African American southerners who have settled to begin new lives. Yet, they are haunted by the past.

Courtesy Netflix

Indeed, it is the theme of the ghosts of the past and the pain of generational wounds, that forms the core of the story.  The Piano Lesson is, first and foremost, a gothic drama. The Charles family, as presented here, is presided over by Doaker, the uncle of Willie and Bernice, who is widowed and raising a young daughter. His brother, Winning Boy, is a heavy drinker who constantly arrives in various states of inebriation. A family friend, Avery, is an aspiring pastor who is sweet on Bernice, who has rebuffed his advances due to the emotional and spiritual wounds from the death of her husband, Crawley.

This death is one of several cruxes, given the involvement of Willie and Lymon. Willie wants to rid himself of the past and conquer a new future, by buying the land that his ancestors once toiled on as slaves, and from which his own father once stole back the piano. Bernice is not ready to move on, at all, finding herself frozen in time as both a young girl and a widow. Each of these characters house trauma, be it from dreams deferred or lost, or from the deaths of loved ones. Most especially, they all bear the pain of being black in the USA of Jim Crow. To wit, Willie, Lymon, Doaker and Wining Boy, each did time on the “Parchman Farm”, the state penitentiary of Mississippi.

Courtesy Netflix

In one of the film’s best scenes, the four men share tales of their experiences of being black and male in Jim Crow Mississippi, and especially doing time on “the farm” culminating in a rendition of the song “Berta” in which the clear pain and communal suffering is communicated to the audience. If you did not understand where they were coming from before this sequence, you most certainly will afterward. Here, the ghosts are the memories of unjust incarceration and neo-slavery, whereas elsewhere the ghosts are perhaps too real.. The film contains a lot of subtle and direct commentary on what life was like in 1936, and how slavery remained a living memory for some.

How much you enjoy the film depends on how much you allow the magical realism, metaphor and allegory to carry you. If you look for absolute realism, instead of simply truth, you will be disappointed in this work. Otherwise, there is much to recommend. John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler get to shine, which is no easy task in a film that also features Samuel L. Jackson as Doaker, Michael Potts as Winning boy, Corey Hawkins as Avery and an outstanding Ray Fisher as Lymon, all backed up by sensitive direction from Malcolm Washington, in his feature debut.

Courtesy Netflix

The house in which a majority of the film takes place, and the piano itself, are as much characters as anything or anyone else, and there is care here. The shadows are deep, at night, and the light not quite full during the day. Something is off, and it is fully intentional. Washington wisely avoids flash but does not shy away from movement, allowing this play to breathe, to have a life of its own. This is a decision which helps the audience buy into these characters. It is, simply, one of the year’s very best films. You may also be forgiven if you keep thinking you are hearing Denzel Washington in this film, as John David’s vocal inflections here bear more than an uncanny resemblance to his father. It makes sense, in a film so dedicated to examinations about the power of ancestry.

The Piano Lesson is now streaming on Netflix.