Director and star Washington builds a powerful ‘Fences’
Denzel Washington’s key to directing Fences is unleashing the full prowess of his powerhouse cast of thespians — himself included.
The knockout adaptation out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters now ) of August Wilson’s 1983 play is paced by standout performances from its entire cast, not only Washington and Oscar contender Viola Davis but also character actor Stephen Henderson and newcomer Jovan Adepo. It’s a Shakespearean family drama set against 1950s suburban Pittsburgh, with everything orbiting one tragic African-American patriarch.
Troy Maxson (Washington) is a garbage man with a personality big enough to fill any room or backyard. He’s motormouthed, casually misogynistic to his wife, Rose (Davis), and has tales for days.
“You got more stories than the Devil’s got sinners,” his best friend Jim Bono (Henderson) tells Troy, a one-time baseball player in the Negro Leagues who never made it to the majors and spent time in jail for murder.
Washington gives Troy a playful style and an empathetic nature when dealing with his mentally challenged brother Gabriel (Mykelti Williamson), though even early on hints at a self-centered darker side. Troy gets promoted to trash-truck driver — the first black man at his company to do so — but as his life starts to look up, he’s harder on those in his family he thinks are disrespecting him. Most of his ire is aimed at son Cory, a college football prospect, and tension rises to a violent boil when Troy pulls him off his school team.
Fences smartly doesn’t mess with Wilson’s great screenplay, which offers a nuanced look at race relations of the time. Troy makes waves in crossing the color barrier on the job, yet in many ways keeps his loved ones from reaching their dreams: He tells Cory that discrimination will keep him from being a sports star, but there’s some jealousy there.
Davis plays the dutiful wife for the first half, but she gets her moment to shine later, as Rose confronts Troy in an intense scene where the actress explodes with such raw, rapturous emotion you can’t keep your eyes off her. Rose is never the same, and neither is the movie as the aftermath shakes every player to the core.
Washington filmed Fences as a play rather than a movie — the production is mostly limited to the Maxsons’ home and yard, where Troy is forever building a literal as well as metaphorical fence. While not a conventional cinematic experience, it does create a sense of forced intimacy among its characters that becomes more combustible as the story progresses.
But with the level of acting talent involved, Fences could have been filmed in the parking lot of a pet store and still been just as effective.
Washington has put together a troupe that crafts a retro story that’s still completely relatable, no matter one’s race, and brilliantly plays a protagonist that finds the sweetest spot between lovable and loathsome.