The Piano Lesson (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – Follows the lives of the Charles family as they deal with themes of family legacy and more, in deciding what to do with an heirloom, the family piano.

My Take – Denzel Washington really seems intent on fulfilling his plans to adapt renowned late playwright August Wilson’s 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle, famously known for indulging in many themes and style approaches that other plays hadn’t approached before.

Previously, the legendary star directed, produced and starred in the fantastic Fences (2016), which earned a Best Picture nomination and won Viola Davis a much-deserved Best Supporting Actress award, and then a few years later produced the also fantastic Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020), which won two Oscars, and saw Chadwick Boseman’s final performance receive a posthumous nomination.

And now for his third August Wilson play adaptation, he once again takes the producer’s chair, but passes on the directorial (debut) duties to his youngest son Malcolm Washington, who retains most of the cast of the 2022 Broadway revival, including his elder brother John David Washington and to re-tell a richly layered tale of coming to terms with the ghosts one’s past and one’s legacy.

Simply told, if the earlier two films struck a chord with you, this one will too.

Yes, in comparison to other recent Wilson adaptations, this is the one that struggles the most to find its bearings off the stage, yet it still makes for a strong presentation of the writer’s work in a story that is nonetheless captivating as it explores themes of slavery, generational trauma, and the Black American society.

Allowing Malcolm Washington to showcase himself to be a capable director, expanding the story in ways he can, while always staying true to the source material. And backed by solid camerawork, production designs, and strong performances from the entire cast, the Netflix release manages to be an intense dialogue-filled journey.

Opening in 1911 Mississippi, as the Fourth of July fireworks bathe a wordless heist in red and blue flashes. A group of unnamed Black men break into an empty house to steal a piano. Early the next morning, some white men on horses burn a remote cottage down in retribution, and we see one (Stephan James) of the thieves, the only who stayed back, escape in the woods.

Moving 25 years ahead to 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, the story follows Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher), who with a truck full of watermelon, arrive unannounced at the home of Willie’s uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson), which is also occupied by Willie’s sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) and her young daughter, Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith), who he hasn’t seen for the past three years.

But this is not a social visit. He and Lymon have come down to sell the watermelons, which will add to his savings and allow him to buy a property back in Mississippi, particularly the one belonging to a recently deceased man named Sutter, where his ancestors worked as slaves. And to complete that transaction he needs more money, which he believes will come with the sale of the family heirloom: a beautiful hand-carved piano in Berniece’s possession that is decorated with carvings of their enslaved ancestors.

For Boy Willie, the piano represents a way to get out of his family’s struggles and reclaim the land that his ancestors worked so hard on for years. He can finally own and move beyond his heartbreaking past. However, for Berniece it’s a reminder of all the blood spilled and their family’s legacy that she refuses to get rid of, despite Boy Willie’s constant harping and complaining. As Boy Willie attempts to sell this piano and get his land, it soon becomes clear that the ghosts of the past are still around, ready to remind this family of the legacy of the piano.

Following the beats of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-Prize winning play, the film uses the closed confines of the Charles’ homestead to tell a potent story surrounding generational trauma and the different ways in which people confront, ignore, or run from it. It also looks at how class and race are deeply intertwined throughout America’s history.

The film does not break the mold for adaptations of theater productions and absolutely feels “stagey” in the sense that the performances are outsized, set pieces are minimized and the emphasis is on dialogue, which is extraordinary. The power of Wilson’s writing and premise is undeniable, and co-writers Washington and Virgil Williams (Mudbound, A Journal for Jordan) pay deep respect to the material, which is bold and muscular enough to command the spotlight. The words carry the most weight here.

This is an emotionally complicated story, after all, about two people struggling with what to do with their family’s trauma, and where to put their pain. In the sense, Boy Willie’s stubborn insistence to sell the family heirloom is a bid to free himself from the past, its emotional burden and the legacy of slavery, and to use that money to take hold of a future where he is his own master. But for Berniece, she intends to protect the sacrifice of those who came before her, making her emotionally stuck in the past. As she continues to mourn a husband who passed away three years, she is struggling to find her way forward.

While the continued focus of fights between Boy Willie and Berniece about the piano bears the limitation of a story made for one location and one focus. Still, the screenplay manages to make the small home claustrophobic and terrifying in its own way. By having all these characters in close proximity and under duress, they’re able to capture a nightmarish scenario in a way that only a film could present. Surprisingly, the story approaches outright horror territory for the climax.

It’s a bold choice and it ultimately hijacks the narrative and makes the emotional catharsis ring as less resonant. As for all of his confidence in directing star actors playing off one another, director Washington shrinks from the opportunity to tackle an emotional climax in a straightforward, head-on way.

Yet, he nails it in one particular scene, when the men are gathered around a table in conversation, and then break into the prison song Berta, which for a brief moment turns the film into musical. They stomp their feet, echoing the clanging of the railroads, as the camera dances between them. There’s real soul to this moment, which is somehow both grounded and elevated, where men shackled by circumstance are singing to the heavens.

It helps that the terrific cast are all up to the task. Danielle Deadwyler‘s performance is nothing short of brilliant-she commands the screen with raw emotion, depth, and complexity. John David Washington is highly charismatic, showy without ever going off the rails. Ray Fisher brings an equally captivating turn. Samuel L. Jackson defies expectations in a make-the-most-of-your-moments role asking him to tame his usual outsized persona and be the film’s vital grounding force. In supporting turns, Michael Potts, Corey Hawkins, Stephan James and Skylar Aleece Smith are mesmerizing throughout. On the whole, ‘The Piano Lesson‘ is a solid adaptation of the classic August Wilson play that keeps us hooked throughout its intense dialogue-filled journey.