The role of a father’s not easy to fill;
The best of intentions can leave a bad taste,
And efforts that some might consider a waste
Can trouble their progeny still.

A father can favor or ruin a child,
Although they may try to resist.
A fine line exists between slaps on the wrist
And a rift to stay unreconciled.

Though not every father will coddle or kiss,
They impact the lives they create.
A father may foster affection or hate
But later is easy to miss.
_________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Movies have so many different elements to catch one’s attention—the score, the direction, the locations—that the acting can sometimes be an afterthought, important but not the be-all-end-all for a success. When it comes to a play, with its limited sets and reliance on dialogue, the acting is everything, and the same applies for films based on a play, at least those that remain faithful to the source material. Fences is a Triple A movie if ever I saw one (that’s All About the Acting for those who don’t know) and features some of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen, especially the slam-dunk pairing of Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, reprising their roles from the Broadway revival.

Washington is both the director and star, playing Troy Maxson, a garbage collector who is easygoing while chewing the fat with his friend Bono (Stephen Henderson, who also appeared in Manchester By the Sea, by the way) but has a stubborn, controlling streak when it comes to his sons, whether it be the dissatisfaction with older son Lyons and his unrealistic musical aspirations or the hard-hearted opinion that young Cory has no chance at professional football. Viola Davis is his long-suffering wife Rose who balances Troy’s harder edges with sympathy and straightens him out when necessary. Both Washington and Davis give intense and incredibly nuanced performances, as does Jovan Adepo as Cory, and their interactions carry affection at first but also a high capacity for tension and verbal fireworks. While I was disappointed that Washington lost Best Actor, it’s about time Viola Davis won a well-deserved Oscar, considering she’s stood out even in small roles for years. It’s also the same role for which she won a Tony in 2010, and she’s now the only black actor to have an Emmy, Tony, and Oscar for acting categories.

While I’m not very familiar with playwright August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of ten plays about African-American families throughout the 20th century, Fences isn’t my first exposure to his work. The Hallmark movie The Piano Lesson had a similar dialogue-driven narrative and style, but while that focused on matters of heritage and had a strangely supernatural ending, Fences is wholly realistic and tackles themes of fatherhood and responsibility with some truly complex characters. Troy, in particular, is both imperfect and admirable in his staunch adherence to personal responsibility; one of his first exchanges with Cory (the main one seen in all the trailers) sums him up perfectly, extolling his devotion to duty but putting that tough love ahead of anything like a caring familial relationship. When he admits to a reputation-shattering mistake on his part, he owns up to it but tries to defend his actions all the same, submitting to his responsibility with cold impartiality but not quite recognizing his own selfishness. He’s a proud man and a bitter one, thanks to racial prejudice and his own half-admitted past foibles that put his treatment of his sons in context.

Fences is a character study of flawed fatherhood, the kind that can mess up one’s childhood while shaping the person one becomes, for better or worse. Like its characters, it’s not perfect: the introduction of Troy’s mentally damaged brother (Mykelti Williamson) doesn’t flow as well as the rest, and I’m not sure it has the rewatch value of other play adaptations I love, such as Driving Miss Daisy. For the first half-hour, as Troy delivers folksy soliloquies that establish who he is, I wasn’t sold, but the emotional turns that follow confirm Fences as one of the great films of the year.

I never thought the whole #OscarsSoWhite controversy of the last two years was that egregious, but it might have seemed that the Academy overcompensated with the number of black nominees in 2016. Yet, with films like Fences, Hidden Figures, and Moonlight, it’s encouraging that these movies with and about African Americans are genuinely deserving rather than some token nominations to fill a societal quota. With its confined setting and focus on dialogue, Fences honors its roots as a play, and the exceptional acting distinguishes it as a first-class adaptation.

Best line: (Rose, to Cory about his father) “You can’t be nobody but who you are, Cory. That shadow wasn’t nothing but you growing into yourself. You either got to grow into it or cut it down to fit you. But that’s all you got to make life with. That’s all you got to measure yourself against that world out there. Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t…and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don’t know if he was right or wrong, but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

2017 S.G. Liput
453 Followers and Counting

Bless all brothers near and far,
The sensitive and callous ones,
The playmates prone to jealousy
Yet somehow fond of family,
The boys who tease and rib and spar
Yet love their parents’ other sons.

Maybe brothers don’t realize
The privilege that I never had,
A friend you maybe did not want,
A buddy quicker to confront,
Yet one whose love your name implies,
Who shares more than a mom and dad.
______________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I recently found a local movie channel that shows more obscure films, and checking out one such sleeper just for the heck of it, I discovered this underrated drama. Dominick and Eugene seems like a prime award magnet. It features a nuanced fraternal relationship, a superb performance from an Oscar nominee (Tom Hulce), strong supporting roles for Ray Liotta and Jamie Lee Curtis, and a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet I’d never heard of it, and the most it received in 1988 was a Golden Globe nom for Hulce before fading away into the sea of forgotten ‘80s movies. Maybe its title was too generic, but this is a shame.

The titular duo are twins living together in Pittsburgh. Liotta is Eugene, a doctor-to-be who tries to start a relationship with a colleague (Curtis) and further his career while dealing with his mentally challenged brother. Hulce as Dominick is the star here. He is child-like, earnest, and hopelessly gullible, often falling for the tricks or suggestions of his coworker Larry and the local hoodlums, and when an idea gets in his head, he doesn’t let it go easily. Despite his disability, though, Nicky is the breadwinner, and his job as a garbage man serves to fund his brother’s education. Eugene is both protective of and frustrated by his brother, for reasons not clear at first, and life, love, and tragedy get in the way of their close relationship.

Dominick and Eugene could have drawn comparisons to the other drama about brotherly bonds and mental illness from that same year Rain Man, which did earn Best Picture and Best Actor Oscars and had far more advertising and better known stars. Hulce can’t quite compare with Dustin Hoffman’s role there (few can), but his fragile and earnest performance surely deserved more attention. One scene in particular stood out to me, as the camera centers on Hulce’s first-person view and reaction to a shocking act and a personal realization. The relationship between the two brothers is both strained yet unbreakable and more believable than in Rain Man, helping Dominick and Eugene to succeed as a subtle and touching affirmation of family ties.

Best line: (Dominick, who is a Christian but discouraged, looking at a crucifix) “If I was God, I wouldn’t let that happen to my boy.”

Rank: List-Worthy (tied with Rain Man)

© 2016 S. G. Liput

361 Followers and Counting

The American dream is a unique hope, a driving force of immigration to this country and an enduring promise to those harboring yet-unfulfilled ambitions. In most films, success comes fairly easily, through situations either comedic (The Secret of My Success) or dramatic (Citizen Kane). No film I’ve seen captures the true difficulty of success as powerfully as The Pursuit of Happyness.

Portraying real-life homeless-man-turned-success-story Chris Gardner, Oscar nominee Will Smith’s finest and most sensitive performance provides the heart of the film. His retrospective narration and recognition of mistakes add to the film’s structure, which is essentially one man’s efforts to survive between an unpaid job, fatherhood, and homelessness. Quite frankly, most of the film is intensely depressing. Many times when Chris seems to be on the verge of a turning point for improvement, circumstances decline even further; opportunities become disappointments, and hopes become letdowns. “Happyness” (a misspelling seen on his son’s daycare mural) seems always out of reach. Yet through all of these obstacles, Chris himself is an entirely admirable father, long-suffering and tenacious, the kind of guy the audience can root for without reservation. Smith’s on-screen relationship with his real son Jaden is genuine throughout, and there’s never any doubt about Chris’s paternal love.

At times, the film is reminiscent of Kramer vs. Kramer; there’s even an exchange in which the son wonders if Mommy left because of him, only to be reassured by Dad. Yet, whereas Ted Kramer had much to learn about fatherhood and needed to fight to keep his son, Chris Gardner was already an ideal father and was forced to fight for a bed, a meal, and a future. While Kramer’s happy ending was essentially an act of goodwill from his ex-wife, Chris’s final success was hard-fought and satisfying. The moment when he finally gets the well-paid stockbroker position for which he had only hoped for the last six months is a quiet, understated scene that pulls at the heartstrings in a legitimately deserved way, like when Rudy earns admission to Notre Dame in Rudy. It’s a brief realization of “happyness” that makes all the inordinate hardships and struggles he endured at last worthwhile. The Pursuit of Happyness depicts the highs and lows of the American dream, which, though elusive, is eminently gratifying when achieved.

Best line: (Mr. Frohm, when Chris is forced to show up to an interview underdressed) “What would you say if a man walked in here with no shirt, and I hired him? What would you say?” (Chris Gardner, after a moment of thought) “He must have had on some really nice pants.”

© 2014 S. G. Liput

229 Followers and Counting