Period pieces usually have one set audience in mind, but with Netflix’s new 30’s era film hitting their streaming network today – it can check more boxes than just a period piece. The movie is a drama based on a play but has a thriller element added in. And a story of generations finding a new power after their ancestors were enslaved adds in another elements to make the film interesting and worth at least a couple rewatches.
The movie follows a family as they reconnect in the North after years of being apart. While Boy Willie (John David Washington) wants to sell the family heirloom piano, so he can buy property, his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) refuses to sell it. The piano sits unused, and while she’s had several offers over the years, the intricate carvings tell a story she’s not willing to tell her daughter yet. Boy Willie is persistent, to the level of being annoying trying to sell the piano out from under his sister, claiming he has just as much ownership as she does since their father was the one who stole it from the farmhouse all those years ago. But as he continues to nag about selling it, the ghost of the former owner begins haunting the family for injustices he felt were done to him.
The movie is based on the play of the same name by August Wilson, and in that way, it feels like one of those older movie play adaptations. Based in 1936 in Pittsburgh, the distance in time and geographic location isn’t as far away from Slavery times as most people would like to believe. But it’s this proximity that helps the story work, the connection between the generations of family, the relocation to get away from the literal and figurative pains of the past, and the desire to move forward with their lives.
The movie can be taken as an interesting narrative on the power of generational trauma, and the effects it can have decades later. How the ghosts of the past (in this case literally) can haunt people and how the power of your ancestors can be pulled when you need it the most. How the scars of enslavement last years and generations after people were freed. How the literal blood, sweat, and pain went so deep into the piano that it held the power needed to save them. The subtext is so strong as the family bond that it is almost written on the screen, but seeing the power come through Berniece and the bond reconnecting made it even better.
The Piano Lesson will be streaming everywhere on Netflix starting today.
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About The Piano Lesson
A family clash over an heirloom piano explodes. The battle between brother and sister – one hopes to sell it, the other refuses to give it up – unleashes haunting truths about how the past is perceived and who defines a family legacy.