In Fences, Troy, a once promising baseball player turned trash collector, has been stuck in place for eighteen years. Now, he’s afraid to watch the same racial discrimination that held him back do the same to his son.
Based on the play by August Wilson, Fences inhabits the front yard of a family in 1950s Pittsburgh. Denzel Washington, who also directed the film, plays the resentful patriarch, a retired baseball player fenced in by domestic responsibilities and the suffocating racism of his era. Viola Davis reprises her role as Washington’s long-suffering wife after a 2010 Broadway revival of the play; Jovan Adepo (The Leftovers) also stars as their teenage son. Fences may take place more than 60 years ago, but its themes resonate as strongly as ever.
Fences will open (and presumably enter the Oscars race) on Christmas Day.
