La Leçon de piano

My wife and I watched this at home, streaming. While it is a well-made movie and covers an interesting topic, we didn't find it very enjoyable. It is a movie adaptation of a stage play and it comes across that way, with loud dialog and broad gestures, with limited settings.

It is a Washington family project, Denzel is a producer, one of his sons is the director, another son stars as Boy Willie, and his wife also has a small role.

Samuel L. Jackson is in it but his role as uncle Doaker could have been played by anyone. John David Washington is Boy Willie, he is brash and angry all the way through and after a while I found him hard to watch. Danielle Deadwyler is really good as his sister Berniece. But she is unhappy the whole time because of the bombardment by her brother.

The gist is this, as we see in an opening scene from 1911 in Mississippi when the main characters are children there is a late-night theft of an old upright piano during a celebration event. The piano has sentimental value to the family because of their connection to some wood carvings that adorn the piano. In fact they didn't consider it a theft, they figured they were the rightful owners.

Bernice, now a single mother living in Pittsburgh in 1936, has the piano. However her brother, needing to raise money to try to buy some land back in Mississippi wants to take the piano and sell it. He doesn't make a request, he drives to Pittsburgh with a truckload of watermelons to sell along the way and expects to just take the piano. This creates the discord between the siblings.

The title may lead us to believe it involves piano lessons in the usual way, music instruction, but it isn't. It refers to the lessons a family learns with the piano as a central figure.

The Piano Lesson is pretty solid. Malcolm Washington did a great job directing his first feature film. The cast here is all fantastic, with Samuel L Jackson being the standout in my opinion. The film has gorgeous cinematography and uses visual effects well. The movie has moments that are pretty scary, moments with could character tension and moments that are genuinely funny. The exposition is a bit confusing at times which makes the story a little hard to follow at certain parts. The pacing is also a little off. But overall the Piano Lesson is an entertaining and pretty unique movie that tackles themes about family while also mixing in supernatural elements. I enjoyed it.

August Wilson's work has been an important part of theater work in the Black Communities. Achieving many themes and style approaches that other plays haven't approached before hand.

With the Piano Lesson, while not perfect, it still remains an intense dialogue-filled journey. Throughout, the ambitious direction and atmosphere of The Piano Lesson is successful with it's narrative setting and ground. Exploring themes of slavery, trauma, horror, and Black American society that are interesting. With solid camerawork, production designs, and strong performances from the entire cast, especially Danielle Deadwyler whom I believe will get more recognition in the near future.

The narrative, although it feels a bit long and dragged on some components, it achieves as it's characters and good dialogue moments are investing and engaging. The presentation color is a bit dull, some of the pacing was a bit too dry, and the worst aspect was the musical score, the score felt overdramatic and at times, ruined some of the best scenes that could have been a bit more impactful.

Overall, I do recommend it for those who love August Wilson.

Rating - 6.8: Overall, a film very similar to other August Wilson works, as it uses authentic dialogue and good acting, especially from Danielle Deadwyler, to tell a profound story; but the movie is held back by its amateur filmmaking and inconsistent tone.

Direction - Pretty Bad: The direction on a macroscale feels very amateur and not that well executed; the direction on a microscale is fine as it mimics other August Wilson movies in that it allows the actors to act with minimal intervention, similar to a play; the storytelling is a bit muddy as they did not know what tone they wanted to go with throughout the movie; tension is not built that well because they try to force this horror, ghost story that is not that well executed

Story - Decent: The concept deviates from the original play and makes the movie an unnecessary supernatural ghost story, which kind of hurts the story dealing with the generational trauma from their ancestors; the plot structure is nothing special; the character writing is not that great because they keep introducing many characters and do not do a good job providing them backstory to make you root for them, except for maybe Deadwyler's character

Screenplay - Good: The dialogue is very authentic to the source material and other August Wilson works; the humor is pretty true to other August Wilson works; the symbolism is profound as the whole movie deals with generational trauma this family has dealt with from slavery and racism; the foreshadowing is present but kinda expected

Acting - Pretty Good to Good: Samuel L. Jackson - Good (Feels like he pulls a lot from his experience as an actor in this role, but he does not feel like he is used as much as he should have been), John David Washington - Pretty Good to Good (Plays the lead role decently well, as this character feels like it plays to his strengths as an actor), Ray Fisher - Pretty Bad (Really feels off in comparison to the rest of the cat as his comedic humor feels very forced), Michael Potts - Pretty Good to Good, Erykah Badu - Pretty Good, Skylar Aleece Smith - Pretty Good, Danielle Deadwyler - Very Good (Steals the show in all her scenes as she shows a wide range of emotions and accurately displays a mother trying to hold onto her family and ancestry), Corey Hawkins - Good (Plays his role well and has good chemistry with Deadwyler), Rest of the cast - Pretty Good to Good (The cast as a whole works well together; it was evident that the director let the actors act in a way similar to the play)

Score - Decent: Used decently well throughout the movie; for a movie called 'The Piano Lesson' it would have been great to have at least heard one piano motif throughout the movie, so not having this feels like a wasted opportunity

Cinematography - Pretty Bad: Felt pretty amateur and not that well executed, especailly in the climax

Editing - Pretty Bad: Felt pretty amateur

Sound - Pretty Good: Helps enhance those horror elements

Visual Effects - Pretty Bad: Felt pretty tacky

Production Design - Good: Felt authentic to the time period

Costumes - Good: Felt authentic to the time period

Pacing - Pacing is pretty slow as it tries to mimic the play's pacing

Climax - Climax is chaotic and poorly executed; the ending felt very anticlimactic

Tone - Tone is a big issue for this movie because there never felt like there was a consistent tone as they tried to make this movie both a historical drama and a ghost story; they tried to do a lot of things and couldn't do any of them well

Final Notes - Saw premiere at the Austin Film Festival.

The Piano Lesson is a 2024 horror, drama and comedy starring John David Washington as Boy Willie, a young man who goes about doing business selling watermelons with his best friend Lymon (Ray Fisher). However, things start to take a turn drastically when the family home keeps a piano that is cursed with an evil spirit. As our protagonists start to do things like move the piano out of sight, the piano itself starts to haunt them supernaturally.

Adapted from a play, this story is very enjoyable and hilarious at times with it's cheery tone and marvellous acting. It may sound like a horror film but it really isn't, most of the characters that revolve around the piano actually have a nice build up until a haunting climax. All cast involved did a great job, including the impressive directorial debut of Malcolm Washington (whom I got to meet!) and the rest of the cast were great and they all had their unique personality, something not easy to do. But I think there's one character that stands above them all though, Lymon, oh what a character! He was kind of a gentle giant and his scenes throughout the movie are some of the best.

The only flaw with the film itself, and it's what got it a 7, some of the scenes really dragged out and were very slow but not all of them. For example, we have a really funny conversation about what clothes fit Lymon and that lasts about a few minutes but, no spoilers, there's this one argument around the halfway point that lasts quite a bit. I know it's a play but I'd rather have this time used on some of the perspectives of the characters rather than a argument to show powerful acting.

Overall, really great watch would highly recommend this when it comes out on November, most certainly a pleasant watch and very quotable. You will probably be watching this more than once when it hits netflix.

Grade: A

London film festival 12th October.