Fences (2016)

  It's still technically Saturday for another 21 minutes as I write this so I'm going to say it counts.  Fall semester has started so I didn't have any time during the week to watch movies.  I can only assume that will be the usual pattern until December.  (Next year.  I just have to make it to next year.)

This was one of the big Oscar contenders of this most recent ceremony.  It was nominated for four and won Best Supporting Actress for Viola Davis.

Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) is a garbage man in 1950s Pittsburgh.  He wants to make a better life for his children but is constantly hamstrung by his inability to connect emotionally with them.  He wants his two boys to be self-sufficient and not be scarred by their experiences as black men in a white-controlled world as he was but he doesn't know how to express his concerns without coming across as hard-hearted.  In particular, his youngest son, Cory (Jovan Adepo), is up for a football scholarship, but Troy is afraid that it will only lead to disappointment if Cory is denied opportunities to play because of his race.  He takes steps to secure what he believes is a sure future for Cory, despite the objections of both his son and his wife, Rose (Viola Davis).

This is based on a stage play and it shows.  There is a lot of monologuing going on and not a lot of acting.  Characters give huge chunks of exposition and story verbally instead of using the medium to show those scenes.  I understand that Washington was a huge fan of the play and felt very connected to the material but something seems lost in translation.

A lot of the awards buzz centered on Washington and Davis, who are both excellent as always, and some for breakout star Adepo, but no one even mentioned Mykelti Williamson who played Troy's damaged brother, Gabe.  He was absolutely perfect and I really think it's a shame that no one seemed to recognize the work he put in.  Playing a character with serious brain damage straight, not for laughs, is incredibly difficult because it's such a fine line to walk.  Too far and it's a parody, not enough and you lose the weight of it.  And Gabe is really the emotional heart of the film.  If that performance had been less compassionate, the movie would have felt brittle and cold with no sense of humanity.

Aside from my lobbying for a late nomination, there's nothing I can really recommend here.  It's two and a half hours of a family fighting.  If you saw August:  Osage County and thought "I like the dysfunction but could it just be more in one place?" then Fences is for you.