The Piano Lesson

My wife and I watched this at home, streaming. While it is a well-made movie and covers an interesting topic, we didn't find it very enjoyable. It is a movie adaptation of a stage play and it comes across that way, with loud dialog and broad gestures, with limited settings.

It is a Washington family project, Denzel is a producer, one of his sons is the director, another son stars as Boy Willie, and his wife also has a small role.

Samuel L. Jackson is in it but his role as uncle Doaker could have been played by anyone. John David Washington is Boy Willie, he is brash and angry all the way through and after a while I found him hard to watch. Danielle Deadwyler is really good as his sister Berniece. But she is unhappy the whole time because of the bombardment by her brother.

The gist is this, as we see in an opening scene from 1911 in Mississippi when the main characters are children there is a late-night theft of an old upright piano during a celebration event. The piano has sentimental value to the family because of their connection to some wood carvings that adorn the piano. In fact they didn't consider it a theft, they figured they were the rightful owners.

Bernice, now a single mother living in Pittsburgh in 1936, has the piano. However her brother, needing to raise money to try to buy some land back in Mississippi wants to take the piano and sell it. He doesn't make a request, he drives to Pittsburgh with a truckload of watermelons to sell along the way and expects to just take the piano. This creates the discord between the siblings.

The title may lead us to believe it involves piano lessons in the usual way, music instruction, but it isn't. It refers to the lessons a family learns with the piano as a central figure.

I was really hoping I'd love this, but I didn't. It was visually authentic, but the music was completely destroyed! How do you miss on something as important as the music, in this play??? The "Berta Berta" scene was completely altered, and "Rambling, Gambling Man" was nowhere to be found. Damn shame. They also never show the Yellow Dog train, just smoke! What?

Don't get me started on how stupid they made Lymon. He wasn't dumb in the play, just lonely, naive, and sensitive. I really hated his portrayal. Secondly, Charles Dutton will forever be my favorite Boy Willie. Baby boy Washington just wasn't getting it.

It's not completely messed up, just too different for my tastes. The Washingtons should have just kept the classic aspects in tact.

Rating - 6.8: Overall, a film very similar to other August Wilson works, as it uses authentic dialogue and good acting, especially from Danielle Deadwyler, to tell a profound story; but the movie is held back by its amateur filmmaking and inconsistent tone.

Direction - Pretty Bad: The direction on a macroscale feels very amateur and not that well executed; the direction on a microscale is fine as it mimics other August Wilson movies in that it allows the actors to act with minimal intervention, similar to a play; the storytelling is a bit muddy as they did not know what tone they wanted to go with throughout the movie; tension is not built that well because they try to force this horror, ghost story that is not that well executed

Story - Decent: The concept deviates from the original play and makes the movie an unnecessary supernatural ghost story, which kind of hurts the story dealing with the generational trauma from their ancestors; the plot structure is nothing special; the character writing is not that great because they keep introducing many characters and do not do a good job providing them backstory to make you root for them, except for maybe Deadwyler's character

Screenplay - Good: The dialogue is very authentic to the source material and other August Wilson works; the humor is pretty true to other August Wilson works; the symbolism is profound as the whole movie deals with generational trauma this family has dealt with from slavery and racism; the foreshadowing is present but kinda expected

Acting - Pretty Good to Good: Samuel L. Jackson - Good (Feels like he pulls a lot from his experience as an actor in this role, but he does not feel like he is used as much as he should have been), John David Washington - Pretty Good to Good (Plays the lead role decently well, as this character feels like it plays to his strengths as an actor), Ray Fisher - Pretty Bad (Really feels off in comparison to the rest of the cat as his comedic humor feels very forced), Michael Potts - Pretty Good to Good, Erykah Badu - Pretty Good, Skylar Aleece Smith - Pretty Good, Danielle Deadwyler - Very Good (Steals the show in all her scenes as she shows a wide range of emotions and accurately displays a mother trying to hold onto her family and ancestry), Corey Hawkins - Good (Plays his role well and has good chemistry with Deadwyler), Rest of the cast - Pretty Good to Good (The cast as a whole works well together; it was evident that the director let the actors act in a way similar to the play)

Score - Decent: Used decently well throughout the movie; for a movie called 'The Piano Lesson' it would have been great to have at least heard one piano motif throughout the movie, so not having this feels like a wasted opportunity

Cinematography - Pretty Bad: Felt pretty amateur and not that well executed, especailly in the climax

Editing - Pretty Bad: Felt pretty amateur

Sound - Pretty Good: Helps enhance those horror elements

Visual Effects - Pretty Bad: Felt pretty tacky

Production Design - Good: Felt authentic to the time period

Costumes - Good: Felt authentic to the time period

Pacing - Pacing is pretty slow as it tries to mimic the play's pacing

Climax - Climax is chaotic and poorly executed; the ending felt very anticlimactic

Tone - Tone is a big issue for this movie because there never felt like there was a consistent tone as they tried to make this movie both a historical drama and a ghost story; they tried to do a lot of things and couldn't do any of them well

Final Notes - Saw premiere at the Austin Film Festival.

Decent August Wilson adaptation and feature directing debut of Malcolm Washington who shows off skill and an interesting style.

The film was sometimes a bit distracting due to the unlikable protagonist played by another Washington, John David Washington, who acts well but I just couldn't get hold of his character . It's a theatre play turned into a film that still feels like a theater play. I like those but I know many people don't like stagey films.

Almost taking place on only one central set it's quite intriguing at times and makes you feel to be in the middle of it all.

Other notable performances came from Samuel L. Jackson who is rather subtle here. He had huge Oscar buzz before the film was seen, that slowed down now. I guess because it appears to be not special. And maybe they are right . It's not special or award worthy but it was good. Jackson nailed it and did what he was supposed to do. Many praised Ray Fisher but for me he wasn't anything special and I didn't buy his performance from time to time.

The true MVP is Danielle Deadwyler who is absolutely fantastic. A role that could have easily been overacted but she hit all the right tones and goes under your skin. Great work for which she hopefully finally gets an overdue Oscar nomination which she already missed for Till.

I was surprised at the low rating for this film. I was not familiar with the play or the previous movie version, however, like other August Wilson's work, I really liked it. There was some strong acting and a it's a moving and memorable story.

Again, as in her acting in Till, I was so impressed with Danielle Deadwylers performance. She is definitely a stand out. I hope she get the accolades she deserves during the award season.

The story deals with slavery, a subject many are uncomfortable with, however it is a major part of American history. I thought it was handled thoughtfully. Don't let the subject matter stop you from seeing this!