Building on Fences

          Few films have dealt with racial tensions of the mid-twentieth century like Fences does. In that the racial troubles that permeated the 1950s looms over the story but isn’t its main focus. That focus is on something more intimate: the character and attitudes of a black family living in Pittsburgh during this time.
          Troy Waxson (Denzel Washington) is a garbage-man earning just enough to provide for his family, his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and son Cory (Jovan Adepo). He has an older son Lyons (Russell Hornsby) an aspiring musician often borrowing money from his father, and a brother Gabe (Mykelti Williamson) who was injured during the war and is now mentally handicapped. The drama comes from Cory determining to become a football player rather than finding a job with sustainable income that his father wants, as well as Troy’s other habits that work to crumble his family relationships.
          Fences is based on a play by August Wilson; a critically acclaimed Tony and Pullitzer Prize winning play at that, and it shows. The plot is incredibly dialogue-driven, a lot of it through Troy’s speeches, and often is written to sound more pointed and grandiose than how people actually talk. The story’s also very long-winded in this regard and almost entirely set in the one house on one of three sets. There are a couple brief scenes away from it that were obviously written into the movie. I have to believe apart from these that this is an incredibly close adaptation. And that’s easily the largest flaw. It feels like you’re watching a play rather than a movie the whole way through. Nothing about this film is particularly cinematic, the medium isn’t used to any significance. There’s no visual sense, and the directing from star Washington often feels like its on autopilot. The cast who seem to be the same as in the play, are just acting their parts out the way they did there.
          But for that, this is a good cast. Washington is really good in the lead, delivering a strong, not always likeable, but tragic performance. The scenes between him and his son are particularly powerful, and prime instances of the writing actually complimenting a scene. It helps too that Troy is a pretty interesting character. He’s rough and commanding but also worn and weary. The film gives us his whole backstory including an attempt himself to become a sports star, and it adds dimension to this alcoholic who’s not as content as he’d like his friends and family to believe. The stand-out though is Viola Davis, whose performance here is possibly the best of her career. There’s an equally tragic nuance in how she subtly plays the doting wife and in her impassioned sequences later when it all bubbles out, is utterly fantastic. Williamson, Adepo, Hornsby, and Stephen McKinley Henderson as Troy’s old friend Jim Bono play their parts very skilfully too. Williamson in particular captures a few minor details that make his character’s condition resonate realistically, and Adepo plays Cory’s conflict with his father very impressively.
          As I noted before it’s a curious thing that this movie tackles racism without really doing so openly. Almost no white characters appear on screen and though race is brought up as a factor in how small a chance Cory has of making it as a football star, for the most part it’s played down. The racial theme is present merely in the environment, and how the characters interact which is very refreshing. This film and the play it’s based on is very clearly about the black experience of the 1950s and by its very nature, it’s contradiction to the white experience. You can’t separate the divergent identities even though the movie doesn’t explicitly focus on them.
          Fences is named as such for the fence around his yard that Troy spends most of the film either building or procrastinating on, and it’s of course also an obvious allegory for the barrier he’s building with his family. Again, very much a stage-play trope, but it is admittedly a worthwhile metaphor for Troy’s character and development.
          Though it’s got great performances, you won’t get anything more out of Fences on the screen than you would on stage. Either it doesn’t translate well or wasn’t adapted enough, and because of this it can feel very slow and unappealing. The stuff the movie does right in its themes as well as the weight of the story itself and character motivations makes it definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in the subject matter. But I can’t help thinking this must have been great play turned into a just decent movie.