Fences

(warning: contains spoilers for Fences)

Fences has been a long time in the making.  Based on the 1985 Pulitzer and Tony award winning play by August Wilson, he refused permission for any non-black director to work on his play, stating that "whites have set themselves up as custodians of our experience".  Wilson died in 2005, but his decree was absolute, and so his estate released the rights to the screenplay to Denzel Washington who directs and acts in this production.

Fences.  They keep people in.  They keep people out.

Troy Maxson (Washington) is a waste collector who lives in 1950s Pittsburgh with his wife, Rose (Viola Davis) and their son Cory.  We learn about Troy's life and beliefs as the play goes on.  I mean, film.  Except it is a play.  It looks like a play and it sounds like a play.  This isn't meant as a criticism, it's just how the film is set up.  Other characters come and go, but mainly they teach us more about Troy.  How he is as a father, a husband, a colleague, a brother.

The fences referred to in the title refer to the fence that Rose has asked Troy to build around their property, a source of tension between him and Cory.  It also harks back to the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence".  This defines Troy's life - it's one full of "if only's".  Everyone else has things a little better, life would be better if he was...with another woman/had been a baseball player/could read/had more money.  Troy is a fascinating character - he fills and dominates the screen, and Washington plays him with a barely contained anger.  He is one of those people who is the absolute life and soul of the party until someone says something that displeases him, and then all of a sudden the party is over...
That said, he's also weak and strong, pitiful and commanding, intelligent and a fool.
There's a good chance that Denzel Washington will get a Best Actor Oscar, but he has Casey Affleck to beat and I can't comment...yet.  But Affleck has some ways to go to be better than Washington's Troy.

Playing across from him is Rose, who helps smooth Troy's rough edges.  Having only just seen Hidden Figures, and being sure that Octavia Spencer was going to get the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, I'm now convinced it will go to Viola Davis.  Her portrayal of Rose is one of a woman loves her man but who knows what Troy is like, listens to the same stories again and again, knows which arguments to leave alone, and which to fight.  And when she fights, she goes toe-to-toe with Troy.  Her "big speech" is heartbreaking, about how she had married him because she loves him and soon afterwards realises that he is too hard and bitter a character to love her back in the same way, but that she never cared because she chose to be in the marriage for the long haul.  She's a useful character because she tells us how to respond to Troy (it's surprisingly difficult to tell if Troy is angry or not - Rose's laughs and smiles guide the audience through his moods) She is fierce and vulnerable, and Davis deserves every award she's up for.

Rose is happy - so we know to be happy too.

Given the understandable furore in recent years about #Oscarssowhite, I wonder if this film would have made the Best Picture list in any other year.  Although it's a very engaging story, it's a play, not a film.  This is a film with a black cast, black director, black writer, about black issues - it almost feels like the Academy is trying a bit too hard.  I doubt it will win Best Picture, but it will be going home with well-deserved awards.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions: 

• If Denzel Washington gets the Best Actor Oscar, he will become the third man to have three acting Oscars, after Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis.
• Mykelti Williamson was fantastic as Gabriel.
• Do we all just become our parents?