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01/11/2017 11:01 PMPG-13
The human spirit is beautifully complex. It can be rock-strong or waver with the wind, be deeply driven, or come crashing down into pieces. And, the spirit can rise again. Fences, based on August Wilson's now-classic play about the African-American experience all wrapped up in one family's dynamics, shines its light with Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, and a cast of competent actors taking on the full range of emotions.
Several players reprise their roles from the most recent Broadway production. Washington, the film’s director, who exhibits the vulnerability and denial of his character in Flight, and the fierceness of his Training Day role, also brings to Troy Maxson (Wilson’s combination of Mason and Dixon for his name) a person who lives inside his storytelling illusions. The audience sees his whole life unfold in his stories, and Washington skillfully, resolutely singles out each moment, with a concluding piece pitched right to the audience. His is a classic Academy Award performance. Troy’s pain pierces through his laughter as he jokes about his adversary, Death, who counts out his strikes in life as he talks about his mistakes, using baseball metaphors. He is angry at the inequalities of the 1950s and has what Wilson calls a “warrior spirit.” The symbolic thread trailing throughout is the unfinished fence, what one character says some people build “to keep people out and some to keep people in.” Troy keeps people out, but is steeped inside his Pittsburgh Hill neighborhood.
His long-suffering wife, Rose, played by Viola Davis (The Help, TV’s How to Get Away with Murder), keeps people in. She laughs at Troy’s stories, returns him to reality, and endures, like Dilsey, the matriarch of the servants in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. She is loyal and not driven to self-destruction like her husband. But she does rage and react, soothe and provide safety for those around her. Davis’s spirit as Rose is indelible, and she makes a formidable counterpoint to Washington’s Troy.
Another actor from the Broadway production, Stephen McKinley Henderson (Manchester by the Sea, Tower Heist) plays Bono, Troy’s co-worker and friend, who observes and learns from Troy’s stories, rants, and frailties. Henderson is perfectly cast, having received a Tony nomination for the role and played in Jitney, which, along with Fences, is another of Wilson’s 10 plays called the Century Cycle.
The epitome of the working actor, Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump, TV’s Designated Survivor) creates a kind of Shakespearean fool playing Gabe, Troy’s war-injured brother who, although impaired, sees what others cannot and from a different perspective.
As with many plays brought to film, the setting can appear static as the players move through it, because the visuals seem staged, but the actors’ immersion in the dialogue of Fences elicits its pathos. The father/son conflict, when the son wants to break away from the older viewpoint, becomes bittersweet in the capable hands of Russell Hornsby (TV’s Grimm, Forgiven) as struggling musician son, Lyons, who yields under Troy’s anger. Newcomer Jovan Adepo (The Youth, TV’s The Leftovers), as younger son Cory, ultimately challenges Troy’s hard-held beliefs and smoothly transforms from boy to man.
In Fences, Wilson’s wise words hold fast. Davis and Washington make memorable the husband-wife relationship, especially Rose’s grief and eventual fortitude when she learns of Troy’s transgressions. When Troy finally strikes out, Washington plays him as haunting and flawed, a true classic figure in American cultural history.
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