Director: Malcolm Washington
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Danielle Deadwyler, Corey Hawkins
Screenplay: Virgil Williams, Malcolm Washington
125 mins. Rated PG-13 for strong language, violent content, some suggestion references and smoking.

In the past several years, we’ve seen a small influx of August Wilson plays finally being adapted for the big screen. The late playwright, known as the “theater’s poet of Black America,” has surprisingly fewer adaptations for film than I would’ve believed, but Denzel Washington’s Fences and George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (a personal favorite), were both successful during awards season, so it stands to reason that the newest adaptation, a more spiritual ghost story of sorts, would fare as well. While perhaps not as strong as the two previous, The Piano Lesson is another expertly performed and daring film version, even if it loses a bit of momentum by the end.

The Piano Lesson follows the Charles family over the course of several days as they decide what to do with the family heirloom, a piano with intricate handcrafted carvings made into generations earlier. Boy Willie (John David Washington, Tenet) hopes to sell the piano in order to help finance a land purchase, while sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler, I Saw the TV Glow) plans on keeping it to honor her legacy. Uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction) doesn’t care much in the matter but hopes to keep the peace in his household. As the tension builds over the dilemma, member of the family begins seeing apparitions of the recently deceased Sutter, whose family owned some of the slave ancestors of the Charles family when the piano was carved.

As with the previous two adaptations, August Wilson’s intense and real dialogue shines through perfectly in The Piano Lesson. There are almost too many terrific performances to call out here, so I’ll highlight a few, specifically the central Charles family triad: Doaker, Boy Willie, and Berniece. Jackson, who starred as Boy Willie in the world premiere of The Piano Lesson decades ago, returns to the material as the older, slightly wiser Doaker, and he’s a delight. Jackson speaks swiftly, with not a care in the world, and he’s often able to completely disappear into the character. I could tell he was having a blast with the material (he’s often stated that he enjoys it so much that he fears he’ll miss his lines), and his is the character we’re meant to view through in many ways.

Washington and Deadwyler are so good with their chemistry, both love and hate, that I could almost believe they were siblings. The amazing thing about Wilson’s writing is that we can side with both of them quite easily. Why shouldn’t Boy Willie be able to make his money, stake his claim on land for him and the future of his family, and yet, we shouldn’t have to see a family heirloom lost because of it. I think this is perhaps Washington’s best work (hard to top BlacKkKlansman), and Deadwyler, while having less screen time than she did in Till (an obvious awards snub), still manages to make the most of it.

A minor criticism I had for Fences was that it felt very much to me like an August Wilson play filmed as a motion picture instead of an adaptation of the play that made use of the motion picture art form. There are significant differences in plays versus films, and Fences didn’t make much use of the differences (still loved it, but I stand by it). Through use of occasional dream narrative, music, flashbacks, and the necessary special effects for a film adaptation of The Piano Lesson, director Malcolm Washington definitely makes use of filmic language here, offering up an adaptation that still feels true to Wilson’s words while making it work to the fullest extent as a motion picture.

I have memories of reading The Piano Lesson when I was younger, particularly connecting with the spiritual elements, and that’s one area that I feel Malcolm Washington’s film version struggles to maintain its momentum. While the first two-thirds of The Piano Lesson have a nice speed and pacing as they build to this explosive climax, the final portion of the film stretches events out too much and make for a less-exciting finale, losing a bit of the crescendo that the ending needs for all that payoff and catharsis. While it doesn’t ruin the film by any means, this spiritual finale loses a bit of steam and intensity by slowing down too much.

While I prefer the Fences and Ma Rainey to The Piano Lesson, this film version makes full use of the medium of film and contains some of the best performances of the year, offering up a thoughtful character piece with a lot of intensity and range from its entire cast. The ending loses a bit of the impact, but not enough to take away from the experience. Don’t let this one pass you by when it hits Netflix.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe