The Piano Lesson
2024
**½
Director: Malcolm Washington
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Danielle Deadwyler, Corey Hawkins, Olivia Washington, Pauletta Washington
In the 1930s, the Charles siblings clash over whether to sell the family heirloom piano, which is carved with their family history and appears to be haunted by a ghost of a murdered slave owner. Malcolm Washington's directorial debut, starring his brother John David and produced by his father Denzel, is based on August Wilson’s 1987 play. The opening flashback sets the scene with minimal dialogue and confident visual style. From there onwards, however, it mostly confines itself inside one closed set, and begins to look and feel like a filmed stage play. Like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, another Wilson adaptation, it features long monologues and shouty performances, which never truly unengaged me.
