August Wilson's classic play has Boy Willie driving 1800 miles nominally to see his sister and sell some watermelons. What he really wants to sell the family piano and use the money to buy "the family" farmland, but his sister Berniece won't part with it because the piano is decorated with likenesses of all of their family.
This is a very good adaption of the play which recently played Broadway with the same cast. It's a film that allows the cast, which includes Danielle Deadwyler, John David Washington and Samuel L Jackson, to really shine.
At this point I should state that as much as the play is considered a classic, it's not one of my favorite August Wilson plays. My problem is that I think Boy Willie is one of the weaker characters in Wilson's work. He's not as well drawn as the other schemers who see a way to easy money and a better life that inhabit all of Wilson's other films, to me exists simply to drive the story (the other Wilson schemers seem more grounded). John David Washington makes a good try at making the character work, but it doesn't quite happen.
Still the rest of the cast makes the film work better than I thought it would.
Worth a look.
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