Rarely have so many talented people worked together to make movie that is such a mess. Everyone associated with Good Fences -- not just Glover and Goldberg, but also director Dickerson and screenwriter Ellis -- has done much better work in the past, and will do better work again in the future. But this pudding has no theme, as Churchill said. It is neither comedy nor drama, neither funny nor moving. If it has any message, it is that all white people are foolish and that black people are racially inauthentic if they value success, accomplishment, wealth, or even suburban comfort. The movie seems to agree with the character in the Robert Frost poem ("Mending Wall") that "good fences make good neighbors"; its tone argues that integration was a failure, and that blacks should stick to neckbones and avoid brie. But the narrator of Frost's poem is wiser, and says, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down."
Review of Good Fences
