Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington directs and stars in this drama about a struggling father raising a family in racially-intolerant 1950s America.
Based on the Pulitzer-winning play by August Wilson, who adapts his own stageplay for screen. Co-stars Viola Davis (The Help), a two-time Oscar nominee before making history as the first black woman to be nominated three times - in the running for Best Supporting Actress as Rose Lee Maxson, the wife of Washington's character.
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92%270 reviews
There is one thing you must know before you see Fences: there is a LOT of talking. “No duh,” say the people who are well aware of the late August Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play that he also adapted for this screen version. For the rest, you need to go into this for the love of great acting and superb writing. Do that and you’ll be rewarded.
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As you watch "Fences," there's never a doubt that these lives matter, and that's a good and noble thing, but you're also aware (maybe too aware) of how much the movie itself wants to matter.
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Washington's performance - as big as it gets - is all wrong for the movies, where even a self-aggrandising character like Troy Maxson, a former Negro Leagues star ballplayer turned '50s Pittsburgh garbageman, needs to be scaled back to feel realistic.
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Even as it properly foregrounds Wilson's dialogue - few playwrights have approached his genius for turning workaday vernacular into poetry - "Fences" is much more than a filmed reading.
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This film is conceived as a showcase for its performers, and, as that, it is immaculate.
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The combination of top acting and the powerful rhythm of the language in the drama's celebrated high spots absolutely holds us.
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Offers enough dramatic meat, boisterous humour and lived-in performances to hook audiences of all stripes.
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A simply extraordinary film without crashes, bangs and wallops but full of towering performances delivered with intelligence, power and heart.
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