Review year starting exceedingly late, mea culpa but nothing to be done, forward ho with worthy Fences.
Fences is the 3rd feature film directed by Denzel Washington, peripatetic actor of sometimes overdone histrionics, whose directing style so far proved mildly and unobtrusively effective. In Fences he comes to fruition.
Fences tells the story of a “flawed” working class pater familias in 50s Pittsburgh (Washington), unable to express his fatherly and husbandly love but through the “tough” variety, with often counterproductive results.
Fences adapts an eponymous Pulitzer awarded theatre play by August Wilson, apparently a latter-day African American Tchekov. In time-honored if all-but extinct tradition, full cast is transported from Broadway to Hollywood. Unavoidably verbose but effectively dramatic screenplay demands virtuoso self effacing shot-reverse shot directing from Washington and high octane emotional intensity from the cast. Everyone stands and delivers.
Refleshingly oblivious to every conceivable marketing trend, Fences received general accolades and seems well poised to get some of the more mundane industry awards. Auspiciously so.