“The Piano Lesson” is the latest in a string of recent adaptations of August Wilson’s 10-play American Century Cycle, after 2016’s “Fences” and 2020’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Denzel Washington starred in and directed the former and he produces his son Malcolm Washington’s feature directorial debut here. Denzel’s other son (Malcolm’s brother) John David Washington stars in the ensemble piece, Malcolm’s older sister Katia Washington executive produces, and rounding out the firmly family affair, the film is dedicated to Washington family matriarch, actress Pauletta Washington, with a “for mama” on screen dedication.
“The Piano Lesson” opens in 1911 Mississippi, as 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, but the thieves escape.
It’s a stark opening, one that indicates this adaptation might not be as beholden to the single-location setting of its source material. Unfortunately, Malcolm’s adaptation is largely faithful to Wilson’s play and is likewise grounded in one location.
It all kicks off 25 years after that heist when Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) arrive unannounced to Willie’s uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and his sister Berniece’s (Danielle Deadwyler) Pittsburgh home, a truckful of watermelon in tow. Their arrival comes with a plan, one the loudmouth Boy Willie shares freely with whoever will listen. Cash from selling these watermelons to Northerners along with some money he’s saved up will make up two-thirds the amount needed to buy some property back in Mississippi. It’s this final third that drives “The Piano Lesson:” Boy Willie wants to sell the family heirloom – the beautiful hand-carved piano at the center of the opening heist — which now sits in Berniece and Doaker’s living room in Pittsburgh. Hand carved engravings seen in quick glimpses in the dark in the opening are now visible in great detail — this piano is quite exquisite and a testament to the work of production designer David Bomba.
This piano represents a heavy history for the family and each member has a different way of dealing with this pain. Berniece won’t consider selling it — there’s been too much family bloodshed spilled around it — namely that her and Boy Willie’s father was killed the morning after the heist — to just unload it. Treating it with a reference bordering on fear, she even refuses to play it. Boy Willie is more cavalier, seeing it as a valuable asset that can help him move up in the world, a key to granting him the invaluable title of property owner. This opportunity doesn’t come around often for a Black man, especially in the South in 1936, and he’s eager to seize on it. “The Piano Lesson” becomes 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.
Malcolm adapted Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play with Virgil Williams, a veteran TV writer with credits on “24”, “ER” and “Criminal Minds”. Aided by Wilson’s foundational prose, the script trades bravura speeches with smaller moments illustrating how people with deep familial bonds interact. While Deadwyler’s Berniece who can come across as a bit of a killjoy at times, you understand her annoyance at the chaos these unannounced relatives bring into her home. She has a child to take care of, keeps seeing an ominous ghost upstairs, and simply doesn’t have time for the tom foolery these men bring.
Malcolm’s knack is in staging the men hanging out. In the film’s most powerful sequence, Boy Willie, Lymon and Wining Boy (Michael Potts as Doaker’s brother who just arrived from Kansas City) begin singing a work song from their farming days back in Mississippi. Doaker is reluctant to join in — uninterested in recalling a time in his life firmly in the rearview mirror. But he can’t resist, and the four men combine to create a powerful kitchen choir, supplemented with banging on the table and clapping, and different solos allotted to each man. The extended sequence is breathtaking, one that highlights Malcolm’s confidence — this is not a set piece many first time directors would dare stage. This kid Malcolm has guts.
Samuel L. Jackson shines as Doaker, a man content to spend his later days up North, sitting on the porch smoking during the day and drinking whiskey with his brother and nephew at night. Jackson, who can dial it up when called upon, is more subdued here, embodying a man worn out from all he experienced down south, and seeks a quieter existence miles away from all of that. That being said, he can appreciate that his nephew Boy Willie hasn’t lost his spark, his anger, his ambition. As such, his patience for his obnoxious nephew contrasts Berniece who simply doesn’t have it in her to tolerate him.
In contrast, John David Washington’s performance as the brash Boy Willie, reads as the closest to a performer reciting monologues from a play. His lengthy speeches and performative body language arrive out of step with the other performances — which favor a straddling of theatrics and subtlety — and derail the film’s emotional core at key times.
Ray Fisher as Lymon is the reserve to Boy Willie’s cocky. He may be dim but certainly knows what he’s doing when he utilizes his lumbering frame and slow speech to casually woo ladies, including Berniece in a lengthy seduction — one of the film’s finer moments. Here, Malcolm proves he can handle the delicacies of staging a slow romancing, alongside the more boisterous familial arguments and late night drinking sessions.
Alexandre Desplat’s score is expectedly lush, if not a little overbearing in spots, often working with the sound design to allude to the film’s supernatural elements ahead of them taking center stage later. The story approaches outright horror territory for the climax. It’s a bold choice, to toe the line of genre, and it ultimately hijacks the narrative and makes the emotional catharsis ring as less resonant. For all of his confidence in directing star actors playing off one another, Malcolm shrinks from the opportunity to tackle an emotional climax in a straightforward, head-on way. Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ camerawork marries classic technique with a more contemporary showiness. Like the rest of the movie, it’s polished and sturdy — seeking to ground the performances without being either too boring or attention-grabbing.
With Wilson’s source material full of appropriately weighty topics to mine, Malcolm Washington’s adaptation of “The Piano Lesson” is referential, often overly so, and while this version contains its fair share of standout sequences along with Oscar-ready performances, the film never fully coalesces into an effective, singular, emotional narrative. The reasons behind can be hard to single out, subtle as they can often be. The supernatural component lingering throughout takes center stage in the final act, and this pivot hews a little too closely to the contemporary “elevated horror” trend involving facing one’s trauma as the only way to dispelling malevolent spirits. John David Washington’s performance exasperates instead of complementing his co-stars, and the largely single-setting fails to realize the scope of how cinema can move beyond the stage in both visual and narrative terms. However, there’s enough promise here to mark this an impressive debut for Malcolm Washington and point to a newcomer to track.
Grade: C+
“The Piano Lesson” premiered at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. Netflix will release it in select theaters on Friday, November 8, followed by its streaming premiere on Friday, November 22.
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