Fences (2016)

Fences (2016)

7/10

Starring

Denzel Washington

Viola Davis

Directed by Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington has over the years delivered home-run movies that will leave you gasping at the masterpiece of a performance he delivers when he is on the screen. Viola Davis on the other hand has never caught my fancy from watching her in the ABC TV show How to Get Away with Murder to Suicide Squad (2016), Viola has been one of those actors who I knew on screen, but not caught my eye.

Here in this classic screenplay we see Viola step up her performance to deliver a much-deserved Golden Globe and Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actress.

The movie treads along the path of racism and the tough life of being a parent. Viola’s character is one which is easy to bond with as she plays a woman who has to struggle keeping her family together as her husband is one screw loose from going over the cliff and a son who has big dreams.

The family has to deal with the difficulty of financial crisis and the desire of parents not wanting their children to grow up and be like them and the dreams children have to reach the sky.

The movie is a Broadway adaptation of August Wilson's fences, the Broadway production in 2010 also starred Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. The movie screenplay sticks close to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play and the screen play was written by August Wilson who died before the screenplay materialized into a movie.

Denzel Washington not just starred in the movie he also directed and produced it, making sure that nobody digressed from Wilson’s screenplay.

The movie plot introduces the Maxson’s family Troy (Denzel Washington) the father, husband and bread winner. Rose (Viola Davis) the wife, mother and glue that holds the family together. The couple between them have two sons, one from Troy’s previous relationship Lyons a musician which Troy keeps telling to quit his dream and get a real job to take care of his wife. Cory (Troy and Rose son) who wants so bad to please his father.

As the family goes through the tough reels of finances, dashed hopes and future dreams, Troy made things tough on his family by having a child from an affair.

Now Rose has to deal with this new addition to the family and struggle with how to keep her family together as Troy’s behavior and irrational is a weight on the family.

Fences is a movie that I will recommend you see for the pleasure of watching a masterful drama unfold and fantastic performances shown.