FENCES

Director: Denzel Washington

2016, 139min., PG-13

Presented by: Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation

Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson

 

Denzel Washington directs and stars in a new film based on a play by the late, great August Wilson. Fences is one of ten plays of Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Pittsburg Cycle (including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.) Washington and Davis reprise their Broadway roles as Troy and Rose, a couple trying to get by and navigate the 1950’s color line. Troy is a sanitation worker who forbids his son (Jovan Adepo) to play high school football – wanting him to avoid the disappointment that he experience when his dreams were crushed by racism. Viola Davis won a Supporting Actress Award, for her staggering performance.

“Her fury will go down as one of the profound moments in this year’s cinema, a scene that will be played over and over, and marveled at for years to come.” Mick La Salle, San Francisco Chronicle.