Denzel Washington is not confined by Fences

Denzel Washington in Fences

Conventional wisdom has it this year’s Best Actor Oscar has apparently been a lock for such a long time that Casey Affleck could be on the fourth or fifth draft of his acceptance speech by now. That theory however becomes a little less credible following this year’s Screen Actors Guild awards where Affleck surprisingly lost out to Denzel Washington.

Affleck’s portrayal of anger and self-loathing in Manchester by the Sea was beaten by Washington’s tyrannical patriarch in Fences. Given that almost half of the Oscar voters are members of the SAG it would appear to give Washington an edge in the big race, while at the same time pointing out the absurdity of a competitive awards system. These two superb performances are virtual opposites; Affleck is full of quiet fury, Washington is full of bombast and bullying. On the plus side, it is the sort of performance Washington has perhaps needed to give for a while.

At a certain point in their careers I believe actors have the chance to choose whether to be an actor or a star. Washington has been enjoying the fruits of his star phase for a little while now with performances in films like 2 Guns (2013) and The Equaliser (2014) which undoubtedly did his bank balance a lot of good without stretching him overmuch. It’s about time he became an actor again and in Fences he delivers the goods.

August Wilson’s drama is a piece Washington knows well. He and his co-star Viola Davis played these roles in an award-winning 2010 revival of the play. In fact, Washington has all five adult leads from that production reprise their roles in the film version. For me it pays dividends; their familiarity with the roles allows Washington, who also directs, to shoot in long takes giving the actors the luxury of the sort of long performative speeches which are normally missing from film.

In Fences Washington is Troy Maxson, a Pittsburgh garbage man whose dreams are bigger than his life. He had a promising future as a baseball player but this is the 1950s and the post-Robinson diversity of the sport came too late for him. Troy takes out his frustrations in rambling declamations in the back yard in which most of the piece is set. Davis as his wife Rose and Jovan Adepo as his son Cory bear the brunt of his thwarted ambition.

Troy’s frustration is compounded by the fact that they live a relatively comfortable life, but not because of his efforts. Their house has been bought through government compensation for war trauma suffered by his brother Gabriel – a shamefully overlooked performance by Mykelti Williamson.

All things considered Troy is not a nice man and Washington never tries to make him nice. There are no nods to the audience to say ‘Look, it’s me, Denzel’. He is unrepentant and unredeemable and Washington plays him that way. Similarly, Davis gets to play Rose as her own woman, there is no long-suffering wifely caricature here.

The original play all takes place in the backyard with Troy’s symbolic fence as a prominent reminder of his incomplete life. Although Wilson also wrote the screenplay it never quite opens out as it should, and there are times when it seems a little like filmed theatre. There is one moment where Troy is taken out of his element – a scene in which he faces a disciplinary hearing – and it sheds an entirely new light on his character. Just once, he looks vulnerable and unsure and I would have liked to have seen a little more of this aspect of his persona.

As a film, Fences is a little less than the sum of its performances but those performances are worth the price of a ticket on their own.