Fences (2016)

Score: 5 / 5

This is how to film a play. While it might upset more high-brow (or, I suppose, low-brow) moviegoers, Fences is a shameless attempt to realize a great American theatrical event on the screen. Episodic and meticulously paced, the film feels staged in the best possible way, and its lack of awareness of its own presence is intoxicating. Relaxed but violent, calmly devastating, this film is as intimate and impacting as the play, but perhaps more so because here we have Denzel and Viola crying and spitting into our faces. Not much is better than that.

I won't recap much of the plot here, because you should know it already. The film works especially well, however, when it enhances and furthers the scope of the play. While some might argue that the lack of concrete boundaries makes it less immediate and intense than in proscenium, I'd argue that the film's vivid sense of place and time make it feel more real and grounded than it can on stage. Of course, that may also take away some of its thematic power, but that's a bit more of an individual measurement; it didn't for me. More important, director Denzel Washington did not film it as distracting. Like John Patrick Shanley did in Doubt, here Washington keeps a tight focus on what's really important, without pulling blatant tricks to drag us along. Rather, his tricks are in design and subtlety, supporting the players and allowing their powerhouse performances to directly access our hearts.

Raw and cruel, August Wilson's biting words fit perfectly into the lips of our treasured leads. Davis is especially radiant, though Washington's delivery is his best on screen in years. They bring a bewildering urgency to even the spaces between words, making the script sound freshly composed in every scene. Noteworthy, too, is Mykelti Williamson as older brother Gabe, impaired but also not, stealing the film every moment he's in front of the camera. Each and every person, though, hits the notes perfectly, maneuvering dexterously between the biting humor, loving tenderness, and savage cruelty of the drama. It's hard to sit through a few minutes without feeling tears (or snot) dripping down your grinning chuckle, a sensation not as uncomfortable as it sounds. Sure, Fences is a lyrical, blustery bombast when you compare it to, for example, the restraint and calculation of Moonlight, but when the performances are this good, it's hard really to compare a picture like that to an opera like this.

IMDb: Fences