The third Denzel Washington-produced film adaptation of an August Wilson play (after 2016’s Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Backside in 2020), The Piano Lesson shares strengths and weaknesses with its predecessors. The vivid, verbose dialogue of Wilson’s 1987 play could also be an acquired style, but it surely’s writing that constantly lays the foundations for wealthy and full-blooded performances.
In The Piano Lesson, which is about in Nineteen Thirties Pittsburgh and addresses a household’s historical past and legacy via the contested destiny of an heirloom piano, the standout efficiency comes from a rare Danielle Deadwyler. She performs Berniece, a widowed younger mom who stands agency in opposition to her brother, Boy Willie (a showy however hole flip from John David Washington), and his plan to promote the piano. Samuel L Jackson can also be glorious as Doaker, the peacemaker between the warring siblings, in an uncharacteristically low-key efficiency.
It’s a good-looking manufacturing, and a powerful debut from first-time director Malcolm Washington, Denzel’s son. However just like the earlier two photos, it’s stagey and mannered – a movie that by no means fairly sheds its theatrical roots.
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