Fences

Reuniting much of the Broadway cast of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play, Denzel Washington directs and also stars as Troy Maxson, a charismatic but bitter ex-baseball player in ’50s Pittsburgh who’s struggling with lifelong oppression and his own bad choices. Viola Davis, as Maxson’s long-suffering wife Rose, deservedly bagged the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, but the entire cast are excellent, fully inhabiting a script written by Wilson himself shortly before his 2005 death. Unflinchingly honest yet compassionate, it’s a haunting portrayal of a workingclass family in turmoil. Tim Coleman