“Ma Rainey’s” is packed with emotion
This is an emotion- packed adaptation of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
★ ★ ★ ¼ Rated R. 94 minutes. On Netflix.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which debuted on Broadway in 1984, is unique for a few reasons:
It is the only work in the late August Wilson’s 10play cycle chronicling the 20th- century African American experience — also known as “The Pittsburgh Cycle” — to be based around a real person, the famed blues singer referenced in the piece’s title. It is also the only one centered on an LGBTQ character, Rainey preferring the company of women.
And, unlike the others, it is not set in Pittsburgh, the action taking in place in late- 1920s Chicago.
The excellent new film adaptation — already in select theaters and landing on Netflix this week — stands out for another reason: It boasts the final performance of Chadwick Boseman, the “Black Panther” star who died in August at age 43 after a fouryear battle with cancer.
While, sadly, Boseman appears remarkably smaller than he did as T’Challa in the 2018 highly culturally relevant “Black Panther” — some fans were concerned by the actor’s apparent weight loss before his tragic passing — he says goodbye to the world with a towering performance as a young musician desperate to make a name for himself in a country often not friendly to a person with his skin color.
The film begins not in Chicago, but in Barnesville, Ga., where two black men run through the woods at night, the sounds of dogs barking cutting through the trees. However, these gents are not being chased by white men, as director George C. Wolfe no doubt wants us to believe, but instead are running to an alreadypacked outdoor performance by the almost- largerthan- life Ma Rainey ( Viola Davis).
It is with this opening musical- powered scene that Wolfe pulls us into his film, its infectious energy putting a spell on us.
We do soon move to Chicago, where Ma and her band will be recording some songs in a studio owned by an impatient white man named Sturdyvant ( Jonny Coyne, “Once Upon a Time”). It will be the unenviable task of Ma’s manager, the likewise white Irvin ( Jeremy Shamos, “Bad Education”), to keep both him and Ma happy.
The story almost is that simple on its surface. Will Irvin be able to convince the highly demanding Ma to record her songs and not simply get back in her car and head back to the South when she doesn’t like what’s coming at her from Sturdyvant?
The drama, though, is in the interactions with the characters — not just among the aforementioned trio but also those of Ma’s supporting musicians, including Boseman’s Levee, a cocky coronet player who talks a big game to everyone. Cutler ( Colman Domingo, “Fear the Walking Dead”), for one, quickly grows tired of Levee, while Toledo ( Glynn Turman, “The Wire”) and
Slow Drag ( Michael Potts, “The Wire”) look to be a bit less confrontational.
There’s also friction between Ma and Levee, who believes he is ready to lead his own band and who has reworked the song after which the play is named in a way the two white men in power believe is more modern.
“That’s what people want now, Ma,” Irvin insists. “It makes them excited. It makes them forget about their troubles.”
“I don’t care what you say, honey,” Ma says. “Levee ain’t messing with my song.”
It isn’t helping matters that Ma has noticed Levee making eyes at her girl, Dussie Mae ( Taylour Paige, “White Boy Rick”).
In his newly purchased expensive shoes, the young man is walking on some very thin ice.
And, of course, it is through Wilson’s gift for dialogue that we experience the themes the playwright wanted to explore, Black characters discussing everything from racism to religion.
In fact, Levee’s rough-language-filled rejection of Cutler’s God is an example of Boseman’s powerful work in the film. It is a performance so soaked in emotion and pain that it’s even harder to watch given what we now know about the actor, whose myriad other notable roles include James Brown in “Get on Up” and Jackie Robinson in “42.”
It is in part due to these extenuating circumstances that Davis (“The Help,” “Widows”) feels like a supporting player here. However, just as she was in the terrific 2016 adaptation of Wilson’s “Fences,” she is almost unbelievably good. Few actors can command attention the way this Academy Award-, Emmy Award- and Tony Awardwinner is able to when given great material with which to work.
Now, we simply must circle back to Wolfe, an actor, playwright and director of both plays (“The Iceman Cometh”) and films (“Nights in Rodanthe”). He proves to be the ideal person for the job, infusing “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” with the sensibilities of both stage and screen, at times giving the actors great space in which to work and at others letting the moving camera of director of photography Tobias Schliessler give the affair some serious cinematic punch.
“Punch” is a word that keeps coming to mind with the affecting “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Although it leaves you wanting just a little bit more from it, it hits you in the gut with a last- act occurrence and in general jabs you with what Wilson had to offer about the aforementioned African American experience of the 20th century.
In its way, it’s a lot like the musical genre it celebrates, as illustrated by Ma in the film:
“The blues helps you get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you ain’t alone. There’s something else in the world. Something’s been added by that song.”