[star rating=”4″]
FENCES. Directed by Denzel Washington with Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen Henderson and Jovan Adepo.
REVIEW: Karen Rutter
Playwright August Wilson picked up a Pulitzer prize for Fences in 1987, and the play has seen many revivals since, the most successful possibly being the 2010 Tony-award-winning Broadway version with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Wilson, who died in 2005, also wrote a screenplay for the work, but was adamant that he would not allow a cinematic version to be directed by a white person. His view was, in cinema at least, “whites have set themselves up as custodians of our experience”.
Denzel Washington rose to the challenge last year, choosing to stand at the helm as well as re-unite with some of his Broadway co-stars (Davis, Mykelti Williamson as Troy’s brain-damaged brother, Gabriel, and Russell Hornsby as Troy’s eldest son, Lyons). The result is a powerful showcase for the two main protagonists, with equally intense opportunities for the support cast. Not so much a cinematic display as an intimate theatrical adaptation, Fences nevertheless captivates as a genuine, and often heart-breaking, American drama.
Set in the 1950s in Pittsburgh, Washington plays Roy Maxson, a garbage collector who was once a promising baseball player, but is convinced he never made it into the major leagues due to racial prejudice. With a tough childhood and a rough adolescence, he was once in jail for killing a man but has pulled his life together, thanks largely to the strong, stable presence of his wife Rose (Davis). Their son Cory (Adepo) is a star football player. But fearing his son may suffer the same prejudice as himself, and maybe also due to jealousy, Troy stands in the way of his son’s potential chances at a football scholarship to college.
And here it is that the essential bitterness – and sometimes downright nastiness – of Troy’s essential character kicks in. While the film begins with his genial, slightly tipsy monologue directed at Rose and Troy’s best friend Jim Bono (Henderson), it’s not long before one starts to sense the deep undercurrents of disappointment, resentment and anger that roil beneath Troy’s skin. And to realise that the drivers of his pain – a harsh father, a hard upbringing – are being perpetuated by himself. By the time he breaks some particularly bad news to Rose, we have lost almost all patience with or sympathy for him.
Both Washington and Davis are utterly superb in their respective roles, and it is not surprising that Oscar nominations have been made. The support cast, too, is magnificent, providing a top grade ensemble performance. This is, in essence, a stage play on the big screen, and they all carry it off with aplomb.
Fences is undoubtedly a triumph, albeit a tragic one – one which, with its patriarchal weight, its all-too-oft-repeated cycle of children born out of wedlock, of fathers either absent or bullying and mothers being stoic but invisible, is sadly all too familiar.
WS
