If you’re looking for a movie about working-class folks this Labor Day, try Fences, which is now streaming on Netflix. The stage-to-screen adaptation is always a challenge, but Denzel Washington pulled it off flawlessly with his take on August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. As the star, Washington conveys the complicated bitterness of Troy Maxton, once a star baseball player in the Negro Leagues, who was denied a chance to make it to the major leagues, thanks to racism. (He was before Jackie Robinson’s time.) Now he’s a trash collector struggling to provide for his family in the 1950s. As a director, Washington keeps the film confined but breathable, moving around the Maxton house and yard. And of course, there’s the incomparable performance from Viola Davis as Maxton’s wife, Rose, which earned her the Academy Award.
photo: Paramount Pictures
