If you are looking for a movie with the quality of watching a play, then I strongly recommend Denzil Washington’s Fences (2016). Based on a 1985 play by American playwright August Wilson (1945-2005), the main characters are Troy Maxson (Denzil Washington) and his wife Rose Maxson (Viola Davis).
Troy is a garbage collector living in Pittsburgh’s suburbs in the 1950’s. The opening scene finds him and his friend Bono (Stephen McKinely Henderson) standing at the back of the garbage collecting truck, exchanging a conversation regarding Troy questioning his boss about the lack of black drivers in their profession.
As a result, he is called to the union and now is worried about the outcomes of this meeting; will he get fired for raising such question? Afterwards, they head to Troy’s house were other characters join in: Troy’s brother Gabe, a veteran who sustained a head injury during WWII that left him with a mental impairment.
Gabe spends his day walking around the neighbourhood conversing with St Peter, chasing hellhounds, and blowing his horn to open heaven’s gate.
His military’s compensation was used by Troy to buy his current house, where Gabe has a room in. Gabe soon leaves the house and rents a room somewhere else.
Troy’s elder son from a previous marriage Lyon is a musician who keeps borrowing money from his dad. Cory, his younger son from Rose, is a high school student who aspires to play football in the college’s team to get a free scholarship. However, the father disapproves of both of his sons’ choices of a career: Lyon’s because it’s not a proper job - even when he defends it as being his true passion - and Cory’s based on his own personal baseball experience; Troy knows that Cory won’t be selected being black.
Throughout the movie, Troy is pushed by Rose to build a fence around their house that he keeps postponing and when complaining to Bono about her insistence, his friend explains: “Rose wants to hold onto you all. She loves you.”
Unfortunately, Troy’s rigidity and apathy creates a barrier between him and everyone else in his life. Rose seems to be the only one empathising with him but this changes with a surprising turn of events.
So, what transformations occur in Troy’s life when he loses control of everything? The movie is engaging and all performances are exceptional. The emotions are deep and turbulent, especially when Rose’s affection and kindness toward others is met by Troy’s pragmatism and callousness; he’s stuck in the bitterness of the past while she sees hope in the future.
The first premier of the play was in 1985, but it’s first Broadway production was on March 1987 and closed on June 1988. It won eight Tony awards and the Pulitzer’s prize for Drama. In 2010, Fences was revived again for 13 weeks only and starred Denzil Washington as Troy and Viola Davis as Rose and both won Tony awards for Best Actors. Curiously, the production of the movie was delayed for years upon the playwright’s insistence on it being directed by an African American.
After performing it for 114 times on Broadway, Washington felt that directing the film adaptation was a simple readjustment. The movie was a commercial success and received positive reviews, especially for the powerful performance of the lead actors. It was chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the top 10 movies of 2016. It was also nominated for the Golden Globe and the Oscars where Viola Davis won Best Supporting Actress award in both. Fences is a magnificent tour de force. Available on Netflix.
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