While Fences was released on Christmas Day in 2016, our reviewer, Will Krischke, feels if you haven't seen it yet-or even if you have-it's a perfect movie to pop into your DVD player or stream at any time.
As it opens, Fences feels like it's going to be a film about overt systemic racism in the '50s. Troy (Denzel Washington) plays a garbage man who has complained, perhaps a little too loudly, about how black folks are always on the back of the truck while white folks are always the drivers. But the film quickly sidesteps that plot line, and instead heads in a subtler direction, and also in a way that I feel like is more easily relatable to the present day; that kind of overt racism might be a thing of the past (maybe), but we all carry the past with us everywhere we go.
Fences is 100% about Troy, and Washington dominates the screen in every scene. He is a man formed by his past in ways he understands and ways that lurk right under the surface; he wants to pass on every hard lesson he's learned about being a black man in America to his son Cory (Jovan Adepo) but he passes on his anger, bitterness and violent nature along with those lessons, almost like they're the envelope carrying the message. A promising athlete in his own youth, denied opportunities because of the color of his skin, he shuts down Cory's own promising athletic career, because he believes that road will only lead to pain and anger for his son, as it did for him. He knows how to live in a world without hope; he doesn't see how his own despair has eroded his soul, or what it's doing to his son.
Troy grapples with his sense of himself as a provider, with how much he has given and how much he has taken from those around him. It's hard to draw clear lines. His brother, Gabe (Mykelti Williamson), came back from the war with brain damage; Troy took responsibility for his care, and used the payouts from the army to buy them a house to live in. But now Gabe has moved out, of his own accord and against Troy's wishes, and he is racked with guilt, living in a house that is not really his. And in the third act, he attempts to take responsibility for his own mistake, but can't escape the reality that really, it is his wife who will bear the brunt of the work required. He wants to live in a house he has built with his own hands, but can't ignore the fact that others are holding up the walls.
Obviously, Troy is a complicated man, and portraying him sympathetically is a Herculean task. Washington does perhaps the best work of his career here, really getting inside the character's skin; he plays Troy like he's known him his whole life, and loved him like a father. In my mind, this is the kind of acting that should be awarded-it's high stakes, high complexity and requires a high degree of insight and compassion. I think Casey Affleck deserved the Oscar this year for his performance in Manchester by the Sea, but I wish there were two to give out.
Viola Davis is also great as Troy's wife, Rose. Troy is not an easy man to be married to, and, while she can deftly sidestep his stubbornness and temper when she needs to, when push comes to shove (as it does in the second act) she shows that she is just as strong and stubborn as he is. As a married couple, they are well-matched and they know it; that doesn't mean that living with each other is a bed of roses, though.
Fences is an adaptation of August Wilson's award-winning play, and it's very stagey. It feels very much like a filmed play; just a few settings, a lot of words, not a lot of action. And frankly, I have no problem with that. I live in a small town an awful long ways from a big town, and while we have a theater company and bless their hearts, they stick to material like Shrek and Guys and Dolls. I am not going to see Fences on the stage, and I'd certainly rather see it on the screen than not at all. I say, let's have more stagey films of award-winning plays. They're bound to be better than most of the pap available in the Redbox.
Will Krishchke and his wife work with InterVarsity in Durango, Colorado, where his wife directs Native Ministries for InterVarsity.
