La Leçon de piano

I caught this at a Tiff screening on Sept 11, 2024 and it did not disappoint. The film is adapted by a play of the same name by August Wilson, which follows two siblings, one who want to sell a precious family heirloom (Washington), a piano, for money, the other (Deadwyler) who wants to keep it. The acting in the film, especially from Deadwyler is unreal; you cannot avert your eyes from her performance, as well as strong supporting actors the entire time. The film itself, while the slightest bit too long, is very well made. Malcolm Washington comes in strong with his directorial feature debut, and has a promising future ahead. The film is deeply disturbing and at times plays a bit too much into supernatural elements, but overall, if you are looking for a good thriller with great performances, this should be on your radar when it releases on Netflix.

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.

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.

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.

It reminds me "Fences" - another Washington production with Washington in the leading role. I guess it is me and my taste, because in that experience and on this current, the results were the same. Big appreciation to the leading actors, but not less boredom, due to the content.

This time it is based on a play by August Wilson, and it definitely feels like an adaptation for a play. The actors are gathered in one location for most of the movie's runtime and most of the time they are talking with one other, until the end of the film, which takes a wild twist for different types of genre.

One of the most interesting themes of this movie is the Washingtons. Malcolm Washington is the director, John David Washington is one of the main characters and of course Papa Denzel is one of the producers. Not enough? Sister Olivia Washington and Mama Pauletta are both in minor parts of the cast.

John David has upgraded his level of acting in this one. He is like fire and also has dynamite dynamic and chemistry with Danielle Deadwyler, which proves once again that she is one of the best and underrated actresses in Hollywood of these days.

A small surprise in a very good role is Ray Fisher, that everyone knows as Cyborg. And Sam Jackson will be Sam Jackson. Marvellous as always. He is not a main character but contributes in his own special way without stealing the thunder of both main characters.

The story revolves around two siblings that meet after a lot of time they didn't meet and have an argument about selling or keeping a nostalgic Piano. No piano lessons will be learned with any piano teacher. However, lessons from this piano's history will be taught by the pound and those two will verbally brawl, until spilling out all the bad blood between them and their ancestors.

That takes us to the pace and rhythm of this movie. Seems that even the actors' abilities cannot prevent the audience from the desire to set their heads on the couch and go to sleep, throughout some major parts of the movie. Maybe as a theatre show it would be much more successful, but for cinema and especially home cinema, it doesn't work so well.