It's been quite a year for the Washington family. Their patriarch Denzel Washington is currently starring in Gladiator II, while his Netflix film The Piano Lesson, which he co-produced with his daughter Katya Washington, is due to be released the same weekend. The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning August Wilson play and stars Denzel's eldest son John David Washington and is directed by JD's brother Malcolm Washington, making it a definitely a family project.
This is the second time I've seen a Wilson play adapted to film, after Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. I went into this movie blind, but I'm glad I did, because had I known this intense family drama was also a spooky ghost story, I may have hesitated to see it on the big screen.
The story revolves around the Charles family, who live in the home of Doker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson), and their treasured family piano. It quickly becomes clear that this family heirloom is special, and not just because it contains an intricate wood carving made by one of their enslaved ancestors. The film begins with a Fourth of July celebration in Mississippi in 1911. As people, mostly white families, watch the fireworks, several black men angrily try to load the piano from the house into a horse-drawn wagon