As someone not familiar with the source material, I can’t say I at all expected a ghostly haunting in this period piece drama.
Based on a 1987 stage play with the same name, “The Piano Lesson” centers on the Charles family. John David Washington stars as Boy Willie Charles, a young man from Mississippi who’s traveled to Pittsburgh to pick up his family’s piano and sell it. His goal is to use the money to purchase the farm where his ancestors were enslaved and have his own land.
His sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler), though, is opposed to the sale, noting its importance to their family’s legacy and history. The two remain at odds through the film, and as tensions rise, eerie things start happening.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘The Piano Lesson’ is a well-acted but imperfect adaptation”
Matthew Liedke on Film 