The Piano Lesson

Review: Y’all, I had no idea what I was getting myself into with this one. The things I knew about this film going into it: 1. It was Malcolm Washington’s directorial debut. 2. It starred John David Washington & Samuel L. Jackson. 3. Denzel Washington produced. 4. It’s based on a play. 5. I assumed there was a piano involved somehow. I was not expecting a large scale generational family drama with intense emotions. I also was most definitely not expecting it to be a horror movie. That was kind of a shock to me. But overall, this is a well rounded film & while I’ve never seen the play (& have no knowledge of it at all aside from this film) this movie very much felt like a play.

High: The film did a great job from the start of setting the scene of all the character dynamics without being too over the top with an exposition dump. The relationships between the characters were extremely interesting & was my main takeaway from the film. I also quite liked Ray Fisher’s role as Lymon. But perhaps my biggest takeaway, and I’ve seen this in other films, is that John David Washington definitely inherited a lot of charm & charisma from his dad. While I think no one has the screen presence of Denzel, John David really holds himself so well.

Low: The pacing was inconsistent, which I have no doubt works for a play (I have very little experience with theater, if you can’t tell), but felt odd in a movie. It was slow slow slow (not a bad thing) and then BAM everyone is yelling at each other. And that happens several times.

Rating: 6.5/10