A promising debut for Malcolm Washington

“The Piano Lesson” is the latest in a series of recent adaptations of August Wilson’s 10-play American Century Cycle, following 2016’s “Fences” and 2020’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Denzel Washington starred in and directed the former, and he produces here, in what is his son Malcolm Washington’s directorial debut. Denzel’s other son (Malcolm’s brother) John David Washington stars in the ensemble piece, Malcolm’s older sister Katia Washington serves as executive producer, and to round out the solidly family affair, the film is dedicated to the Washington family matriarch, actress Pauletta Washington, with an onscreen “for mama” dedication.

“The piano lesson” begins in 1911 Mississippi, as fireworks bathe a wordless robbery in red and blue flashes on the Fourth of July. A group of faceless black men break into an empty house to steal a piano. Early the next morning, a pair of white men on horseback burn down a remote cabin in retaliation, but the thieves escape.

It’s a grim opening, one that suggests this adaptation might not be so beholden to the single-location setting of its source material. Unfortunately, Malcolm’s adaptation is largely faithful to Wilson’s play and is also grounded in a single location.

It all begins 25 years after that heist, when Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) arrive unannounced at the home of Willie’s uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) in Pittsburgh, with a truckload of watermelons in tow. With their arrival comes a plan, which the boisterous Boy Willie shares freely with anyone who will listen. The money he makes selling those watermelons to Northerners, along with some money he’s saved, will provide two-thirds of the amount needed to buy back some real estate in Mississippi. It’s this last third that drives “The Piano Lesson”: Boy Willie wants to sell the family heirloom—the magnificent hand-carved piano at the center of the opening heist—that now sits in Berniece and Doaker’s Pittsburgh living room. The hand-carved engravings we saw in the dark in the opening are now visible in rich detail. This piano is truly beautiful and a testament to the work of production designer David Bomba.

This piano represents a heavy history for the family, and each member has a different way of dealing with the pain. Berniece doesn’t consider selling it—too much family blood has been shed—namely, she and Boy Willie’s father were murdered the morning after the robbery—to simply hand it over. She treats it with a regard that borders on fear, refusing to even play it. Boy Willie is more nonchalant, seeing it as a valuable possession that could help him move up in the world, a key to earning him the priceless title of real estate owner. This opportunity doesn’t come around often for a black man, especially not in the South in 1936, and he’s eager to seize it. “The Piano Lesson” becomes a powerful story about generational trauma and the different ways people deal with it, ignore it, or run from it. It also looks at how class and race are deeply intertwined in America’s history.

Malcolm adapted Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play with Virgil Williams, a veteran TV writer with credits on “24,” “ER” and “Criminal Minds.” Aided by Wilson’s grounding prose, the script alternates bravura speeches with smaller moments that illustrate how people with deep family ties interact. While Deadwyler’s Berniece can be a bit of a killjoy at times, you can understand her irritation at the chaos these unannounced relatives bring to her home. She has a child to care for, a sinister ghost to watch over her at every turn, and simply doesn’t have time for the nonsense these men bring.

Malcolm’s talent lies in his staging of the men as they hang out. In the film’s most powerful sequence, Boy Willie, Lymon, and Wining Boy (Michael Potts as Doaker’s brother, newly arrived from Kansas City) begin singing a work song from their Mississippi farm days. Doaker is reluctant to join in—he’s not interested in reminiscing about a period of his life he’s put in the rearview mirror. But he can’t resist, and the four men join forces to create a powerful kitchen chorus, complete with table-banging and clapping, and distinct solos assigned to each man. The extended sequence is breathtaking, one that underscores Malcolm’s confidence—this isn’t a set piece that many first-time directors would dare to stage. This boy Malcolm has guts.

Samuel L. Jackson stars as Doaker, a man content to live out his final days in the North, smoking on the porch during the day and drinking whiskey with his brother and nephew at night. Jackson, who can handle it when called upon, is more subdued here, embodying a man exhausted from everything he’s experienced in the South and looking for a quieter existence miles away from it all. That said, he can appreciate that his cousin Boy Willie hasn’t lost his spark, his anger, his ambition. As such, his patience for his annoying cousin contrasts with Berniece, who simply doesn’t have it in him to tolerate him.

By contrast, John David Washington’s performance as the brash Boy Willie reads as the closest a performer can get to reciting monologues from a play. His long speeches and performative body language are out of step with the other performances — which favor a combination of theatricality and subtlety — and derail the film’s emotional core at key moments.

Ray Fisher as Lymon is the backup for Boy Willie’s arrogance. He may be dimwitted, but he certainly knows what he’s doing as he uses his bulk and slow speech to casually seduce ladies, including Berniece in a lengthy seduction — one of the film’s finer moments. Here Malcolm proves he can handle the delicacies of staging a slow-burn romance alongside the more boisterous family squabbles and late-night drinking sessions.

Alexandre Desplat’s score is predictably lush, if not a little overbearing in places, often working with the sound design to hint at the film’s supernatural elements before they later take center stage. The story verges on horror territory before its climax. It’s a bold choice to toe the genre line, and it ultimately hijacks the story and makes the emotional catharsis less resonant. For all his confidence in directing star actors playing off each other, Malcolm shies away from the chance to tackle an emotional climax in a straightforward manner. Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’s camerawork combines classical technique with a more contemporary showiness. Like the rest of the film, it’s polished and solid—attempting to ground the performances without being too bland or attention-seeking.

With Wilson’s source material full of suitably weighty subject matter to mine, Malcolm Washington’s adaptation of “The Piano Lesson” is referential, often over-the-top, and while it does contain a fair number of striking sequences, along with Oscar-worthy performances, the film never quite comes together as an effective, singular, emotional story. The reasons behind this can be hard to pin down, subtle as they often are. The supernatural component that lingers throughout the film takes center stage in the final act, and this pivotal point hews a little too closely to the contemporary “elevated horror” trend where confronting one’s trauma is the only way to banish malevolent spirits. John David Washington’s performance irritates rather than complements his fellow actors, and the largely single-screen setting fails to realize the scope of how cinema can extend beyond the stage, both in visual and narrative terms. However, there’s enough promise here to make this an impressive debut for Malcolm Washington and point the way for a newcomer to follow.

Grade: C+

“The Piano Lesson” premiered at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. Netflix will release the film in select theaters on Friday, November 8, followed by a streaming premiere on Friday, November 22.

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