‘The Piano Lesson’: Toronto Review

Dir. Malcolm Washington. US. 2024. 125mins

In Malcolm Washington’s adaptation of August Wilson’s seminal play The Piano Lesson, three Black brothers confiscate a piano from a white Southern home during a July 4th fireworks show in 1911. Through the intermittent flash of fireworks, we view the seizure of the instrument from a point-of-view shot mounted on its lid. The piano will be transported north, toward freedom, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In its wake, a kid by the name of Boy Willie Charles will lose his father (Stephan James) — one of the brothers who lifted the piano — to Southern retribution. In turn, that kid will be weighed down by the ghosts of his past, the cries of his kin and the uncertainty of his future.

Sings the song of a people with uncommon reverence 

Washington’s directorial debut is not the first time his family has cinematically visited Wilson’s work. His father Denzel Washington starred in and directed Fences, and later produced Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – he also serves as a producer here, alongside Todd Black. The director completes the family affair by casting his brother, John David Washington, as the temperamental adult Boy Willie Charles; a part he previously played on Broadway. Their combined efforts ensure that The Piano Lesson, which had its world premiere at Telluride before playing as a Toronto Special Presentation, is beautifully rendered and composed of powerhouse performances. It is sure to find deep resonance with Black audiences and awards voters; it’s set for limited theatrical release on November 8 before a global Netflix launch later that month.

That success will be partly due to Washington’s firm handling of Wilson’s surreal material. Fast forward to 1936, and Boy Willie is now a grown man (Washington) leaving the South for Pittsburgh. He is accompanied by Lyman (a tender Ray Fisher) and a flatbed truck full of watermelons. A white land owner named Sutter, who hailed from the clan that once enslaved Boy Willie’s family, recently died from falling into a well (some believe a spirit called the Yellow Dog pushed him) — and now his land is for sale. Boy Willie plans to purchase it by selling the watermelons and the piano presently residing in the house of his uncle, Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson). While the amiable Doaker does not wholly care what happens to the instrument, Boy Willie’s sister Bernice (Danielle Deadwyler) refuses to part with it. 

This film doesn’t shy away from the play’s obvious Southern Gothic elements. Often the frenzy of Alexandre Desplat’s squeaking, swirling score accompanies Bernice or her daughter’s sightings of Sutter’s bloated ghost. Boy Willie’s refusal to believe in the existence of any apparition puts him in direct conflict with a resolute Bernice. As Boy Willie, Washington delivers much of the theatricality of a stage performance. He lowers his voice to a guttural growl that sounds beat-for-beat like his father, and relies on broad gestures that recall a carnival barker more than a leading man. Yet it all somehow works, because Willie Boy is such an annoying country bumpkin that the crassness fits the character.

Other performances favour nuance. After a breakout performance in Till, Deadwyler returns with an equally captivating turn as Bernice — a woman still deep in mourning for her husband Crawley (Matrell Smith), who was murdered over stolen firewood. Bernice refuses to reciprocate the love of a local preacher named Avery (an affecting Corey Hawkins) and finds brief glimpses of seduction with the quiet Lyman. Deadwyler’s electricity powers both her sensual sighs and the defiant speeches she makes against Boy Willie’s attempts to sell the piano to a white man, reconfiguring this character away from its stagey confines.

Deadwyler is the heart and soul of a film whose every inch is deeply felt. The chipped paint and worn walls make Bernice’s home lived in; the overwhelming burst of celestial lighting fills the frame with warmth; the survivor’s guilt carried north by many African Americans during the Great Migration takes hold. Sometimes the Southern Gothic derived bumps in the night are not wholly interwoven, and the narrative can lose its propulsiveness due to the abundant characters and storylines. Yet The Piano Lesson is not only a strong debut by Malcolm Washington, but also sings the song of a people with uncommon reverence.