The Piano Lesson             4 stars

Denzel Washington acting in the role of film producer has helped bring us the third film adaptation of an August Wilson stage play. Previously, he brought the plays Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to the screen. This year it is the dramatic family drama The Piano Lesson, a story of conflict involving a decades old family heirloom, retribution over a crime and a ghost story. The conflict is between siblings Boy Willie (son of Denzel Washington, John David Washington reprising his stage role) and Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler of Till and I Saw the TV Glow). He has travelled from his home in Mississippi to 1936 Pittsburgh to try to convince Berniece to let him sell the family piano so he can buy farmland back home. She treasures the musical instrument, seeing it as a connection to family members who have passed on and will never allow it to be sold. The land that Boy Willie is after was owned by a white man whose family employed Boy Willie’s family as sharecroppers for generations. The man recently died when he fell into his well, so the land is now available. His death is part of a legendary ghost story we often hear of in the movie, referred to as the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. Most of the movie takes place in a couple of rooms in the small house owned by Uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) where other family members and friends gather and fill in the story. These include Lyman (Ray Fisher), Wining Boy (Michael Potts) and aspiring reverend Avery (Corey Hawkins) (who shows up to court Berniece). Berniece’s young daughter, Maretha also inhabits the house. The various characters engage in friendly conversation, intense arguments and one very lively musical performance that serves to slowly reveal a dark story of the past going back to slavery times that continues to haunt this family. The movie demonstrates that the past never dies, and the memory of long dead family members lives on as symbolized by the piano that has depictions of the family carved into it. First time director Malcolm Washington, and son of Denzel Washington, faithfully reproduces the play, but has probably gone overboard with his inventive shots and embellishing the movie with too much focus on the supernatural. John David Washington is a talented actor, but he overdoes the intensity of his character, I thought. The most praise should be given to Deadwyler as Berniece who expresses the emotions she goes through with her words and her face. As usual she is completely convincing in this role of a suffering woman determined to protect the piano and keep her daughter safe. The Piano Lesson isn’t the best of the August Wilson adaptations, but it deserves to be seen. I will be looking forward to the next one that Denzel Washington brings to film.

Dear Evan Hansen           3 ½ stars

Welcome to the world of teen anxiety, depression and suicide attempts. This is the theme of the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen which won multiple Tony awards a few years ago. There is much to like here if you can accept the premise of characters breaking into song to express their dilemmas. All of the actors give convincing performances even if lead actor Ben Platt at 28 is far too old to reprise his role as the teen with social anxiety, Evan Hansen. They include Julianne Moore as Evan’s mother, Kaitlyn Dever of Booksmart as Zoe, the sister of suicide victim Connor, Amy Adams as Connor and Zoe’s mother, Danny Pino of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit as their step-father and Amandla Stenberg as the overachieving classmate Alana. The movie deals with the touchy subject of teen suicide with a story of Hansen pretending to be a friend of Connor after he is told of his suicide by Connor’s mother. It seems a letter that Hansen wrote to himself as a therapy assignment was found on Connor’s body, so it was assumed that Connor was the writer. It is then that Evan goes along with the misunderstanding and constructs a lie making him a friend of the troubled teen before his death. The spreading of the lie seems beneficial at first with a fundraiser being started as a way to remember Connor, but things ultimately get worse for all involved. I believe I liked it more than most critics, but it is certainly not one of my favorite musicals. Maybe making a musical about teen depression and suicide is asking too much.