Ghosts are everywhere in The piano lessonand whatever form they take, they persistently haunt the protagonists of this excellent August Wilson adaptation. 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Produced by Denzel Washington and directed by one of his sons (Malcom Washington) and with another (John David Washington), this star-studded Netflix The Feature is an agonized drama about the burden of the past year and the conflicting ways to embrace it and overcome it – one rich in character, conflict, detail, desire and history.

In 1936 in Pittsburgh, the boy Willie Charles (Washington) arrives at the house of his uncle Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson) in a truck—driven by his friend and right-hand man Lymon (Ray Fisher)—carrying a bed full of watermelons. Doaker is surprised to see Boy Willie, as is Boy Willie’s sister Berniece Charles (Danielle Deadwyler), who lives with her daughter Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith) in Doaker’s two-story house.

Berniece’s shock is kind of unfortunate, though, as she has little interest in reconnecting with her brother. The reason behind their estrangement isn’t immediately clear, but those troubles are secondary to their current friction over the family piano, which sits in Doaker’s living room and which Boy Willie has come to collect.

The musical instrument in question is an heirloom with a troubled past. Decades earlier, Mr. Sutter, a slave owner, procured his wife’s piano in exchange for two of Boy’s ancestors Willie and Berniece. However, when his wife decided she missed her slaves, Sutter had the Black Clan patriarch carve their faces into its facade and sides.

On July 4, 1911, Boy Willie’s father, along with Doaker and his friend Wining Boy (Michael Potts), stole the piano from Sutter, and after her mother’s death, Berniece had it all to herself. For the single mother, the piano is a link to her legacy, and so when Willie Boy announces that he wants to sell it to facilitate the purchase of the land once owned by the now-dead Sutter, who fell into a well, allegedly from the hands of ” To the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog” – a battle is born.

A fast-talking brat with a habit of cutting his way through conversations (and, when possible, sweeping women off their feet), Boy Willie doesn’t understand his sister’s obsession with holding onto the piano, especially since he could bring them a pretty penny that—along with his savings and the income from his and Lymon’s watermelon sales—would allow him to shore up his present, and as well importantly, to build a future for himself and his descendants.

Having been taught by his father that dirt is ephemeral but earth is forever, Boy Willie sees the piano as an asset that could be a stepping stone to stability and prosperity. Consequently, he considers it a waste to leave it at the Doaker residence, where it is used only by Maretha, who has been taught by Boy Willie to play a rudimentary Boogie Woogie that embodies his exuberant, swinging spirit.

The piano lesson positions its central element as a key to unlocking a better tomorrow and a weight on these figures’ shoulders, so that even Wining Boy makes it clear that his own piano-playing days have brought him nothing but heartache. Co-written by Virgil Williams, Malcolm Washington’s behind-the-scenes debut — which is anchored by four performers (Washington, Jackson, Fisher and Potts) from the play’s 2022 Broadway revival — is a powder keg waiting to explode . At the same time, however, it’s something of a family horror film in which the living are threatened by the dead, and the final solution to Boy Willie and Berniece’s clash is a figurative (and quasi-literal) exorcism meant to purge regrets, resentments, suffering and demons that tormented them and their ancestors.

Whether it’s the fate of Boy Willie and Berniece’s father, who paid with his life for stealing the piano, or the untimely death of Berniece’s husband (and Maretha’s father) Crawley, who died while working with Boy Willie , The piano lesson suggests that there is danger in both holding the tool and trying to make an entrepreneurial breakthrough as a black man in post-Depression America.

Close to his source material, Washington stages his story with impressive dynamism, highlighted by two distinct (if thematically interconnected) scenes in which the action is engulfed in pulsating light and dark. Despite being largely confined to Doaker’s home, the film is rarely stagey, and Alexandre Desplat’s mournful score is in tune with the pain and longing of these individuals.

Until its rousing finale, during which Washington shifts between the real and the illusory with cathartic intensity, The piano lesson prioritizes performances over style, and given its illustrious cast, that decision serves it well.

Washington is a ball of energy as Boy Willie, his face ablaze with ambition and anger at Berniece’s objections to his plans. His charm colored by potential mistrust (a notion suggested by his sister’s accusation that he killed Sutter), Washington’s character is a hard-headed young man convinced that the path he has chosen honors his father. He is contrasted in temperament and perspective with Deadwyler’s Berniece, whose grief and sadness tell her that selling the piano is akin to breaking ties with the past and betraying those whose blood, sweat and tears led to his acquisition. On the heels of Untilthe actress reconfirms her charisma and range; Going from brooding and scary to vulnerable and desperate, it’s a performance of impressive power.

The piano lessonHis supporting players don’t strike a discordant note, whether it’s the jaded and lost Jackson, the naïve and romantic Fisher, the bombastic and depressed Potts or the serious and honest Corey Hawkins as preacher Avery Brown, who has eyes for Berniece. The Washington ensemble boasts a cozy prickly rapport, and the pile of anecdotes and script deviations give the film a lived-in depth.

Respecting the conflicting perspectives at the heart of his story, the writer/director crafts his proceedings as a lament, a scream, and a purge—one in which the desire to cling to a cherished (and heartbreaking) legacy is intertwined and complicated. through, the desire to create a new legacy for self, progeny and family.