Fences

It takes a brave and confident man to not only star in, but direct himself, in a film where he will be painted in the most unflattering light imaginable. I’m not talking about portraying some mass murderer or brutal dictator, either; I’m talking about an everyman who abuses his family emotionally, neglects his wife, cheats on her, and is just an all-around bad person. I have by no means seen every Denzel Washington film out there, but I have seen quite a few, and I cannot remember a time when he was playing such an unlikable character yet was also fascinating to watch. Denzel is a tremendous actor and is more than up to the part, but seeing him so perfectly step into these shoes and make me forget for a couple of hours that I’m watching Denzel Washington acting on screen is worth the time invested on its own. Add to that the award-winning performance by Viola Davis, who should have won an Oscar in 2011 for The Help and again for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and yet again for The Woman King. Viola is so good that she almost overshadows Denzel, which is no easy feat. Say what you want about the film, Fences, but you cannot deny the talent that is on screen.

The stage production that this Oscar-winning film is based on was part of a larger group narrative entitled The Pittsburgh Cycle. This series consists of ten plays, all but one taking place in Pittsburgh and each examining a different decade of the black experience in the 20th century. The stories are not directly connected to each other but do share themes and tone with the goal being celebrating “the poetry in the everyday language of Black America.” We see the struggles of African Americans as they face segregation, equal rights, racism, cultural differences, and much more. 

These plays are an important work that has inspired many people over the forty years since the first of these, Fences, opened in the Cort Theatre, now known as the James Earl Jones Theatre, on Broadway.  Many of these plays have since been adapted for cinema, including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a look at black musicians in the 1920s. Ma Rainey’s is a great film in its own right but is overshadowed by the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman and a well-meaning but misguided restructuring of the Academy Awards with the assumption that he would post-humously win the Lead Actor Oscar. When he didn’t, it made the ending of that year’s ceremony awkward and anticlimactic. 

Since 1984, Fences had been in development hell thanks to playwright August Wilson’s insistence on an African-American director. Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington took over the lead role in the Broadway revival in 2010 and, three years later, made it known that he was interested in starring and directing a feature film version of the play. By the beginning of 2016, it was announced that the cast was in place and the film was going forward for a December release to maximize its Oscars potential and capitalize on the holiday movie season. The strategy worked as it overperformed at the box office and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including two for acting. And then things quieted down for the little film. It got praise during its short run in theaters, and then people just stopped talking about it. It’s been eight years since it was in theaters, and it’s about time to look at it again and reevaluate it. 

The setting is 1950s Pittsburgh, and Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) lives in a modest house that he bought with government money his brother was receiving after a near-fatal war wound to the head left him mentally impaired. Now that his brother has moved out and taken that extra money with him, the bills are a lot harder to cover, but at least the house is paid for. He lives with his wife of eighteen years, Rose (Viola Davis), and his teenage son, Cory (Jovan Adepo). Cory is an athlete, like his father was, and has a good chance at a football scholarship, but Troy won’t let him play if it interferes with chores and his job, even though his boss has agreed to hold his position open during the season. Troy’s refusal to budge on this point comes to a head when a college scout is turned away at the last minute because Troy stepped in and refused to let Cory play. 

Cory sees this as his father acting out because of his own failure to make it to the pros because by the time his sport, baseball, became integrated, he was too old to play professionally anymore. Their drama comes to a head when Cory intervenes between Troy and Rose during a heated argument and attacks his father. Later, he will take up a bat against Troy but is unable to attack him with it. This moment is the last time Cory will call this place home, and he walks away, joining the Marines, his football scholarship no longer an option. As hard to watch as this moment is, it is nothing compared to an earlier scene when Cory, practically in tears, asks his father why he doesn’t like him. Rather than try and reassure his son that he does like him, Troy instead says: “What law is there saying I got to like you?” To that, he adds, “It’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you. I ain’t got to like you.” Some people build fences to keep people out, and other people build fences to keep people in. The fence Troy is building seems to be one meant to keep people away from him, and he will spend so much of his time shoring it up. 

Troy has another son from a previous relationship, Lyons (Russell Hornsby), who is a musician. Lyons occasionally drops by to borrow money, which has become a sore spot between him and his father. Troy’s opinion of Lyons is so low that when Lyons tries to pay him back for the loan, Troy insists he just put it in the bank so that next time he wants to borrow money, he can just go get that instead. Their relationship is best described as strained, which can also be said about everyone in Troy’s life except for his best friend, Jim Bono (Stephen McKinley Henderson), and a younger woman whom we never see that Troy ends up having an affair and a child with. 

Fences cannot escape the trappings of a play turned film. What I mean by that is that at no time was I able to forget that this was an adapted stage play. The scope of things is small, and the bulk of the film takes place in and around the family home. There are scenes away from there, but they are few and far between. This is an intimate film that does not need to really open things up and take full advantage of the larger format. There are pros and cons to that choice. When a film takes place almost entirely in one setting, there runs the danger of feeling claustrophobic. It can be hard to maintain audience attention when there is little change to the scenery. In the case of Fences, that becomes one of its strengths instead. By keeping things this intimate, it allows the film to really focus on the characters and keep narrowing in on the leads, specifically Troy and Rose. 

Through the acting and the dialogue, we get a rich, detailed look at this family and especially Troy. He is a hard man to love, but we learn how Rose met him, how she was taken by him, and why she stays by him even when he does some pretty deplorable things. We also understand her when she has finally had enough and tells him off. He fathers a daughter with another woman who dies in childbirth and leaves the baby with him to raise; Rose accepts the baby into their life knowing it’s not her fault she was born and is to be treated as an innocent in the situation. Through an epilogue, we learn that Rose stuck with Troy for another six years after the main story closes, but we don’t know what that relationship was like after the baby came into the picture. However that played out, we do know that that little girl was loved. 

Denzel Washington has done a fine job directing this play onto the big screen. It’s a fairly long film for this kind of subject, yet it never feels like it. The dialogue is rapid-fire and requires you to really pay attention to what is being said at all times because you learn so much in the back-and-forth chatter that permeates this film. It’s well worth the effort because it enriches a character that is harsh, often unlikable, but is a realistic portrayal of a middle-class African-American man in the 1950s, struggling against a system that is getting better but is still very much rigged against him. He’s a very flawed individual but one we can understand and feel sorry for because so much of what he is dealing with is self-inflicted, and he knows it. His family may be better off in the end after he has passed away, but that doesn’t mean they don’t mourn his passing. Cory comes home from the military, for the first time since leaving, just to see his mother, not to go to his father’s funeral, but she calls him out for that. Like him or not, he was still his father. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Todd Black, Scott Rudin, and Denzel Washington

Best Actor: Denzel Washington

Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay: August Wilson

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Release Date: December 16, 2016

Running Time: 138 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, and Saniyya Sidney

Directed By: Denzel Washington