Scoring four nominations in Academy Awards, Fences is a passion project produced and directed by Denzel Washington who is also the lead character of the movie. Fences is a beautiful adaption of a stage play of same name and was a huge success during its time. The plot of the movie takes place in 1950s, Pittsburgh where Troy Maxson a mid-age African American is working as a garbage collector. Back in days, being a garbage collector was not the profession he wanted to go with since he was the star of the Negro Leagues, a professional baseball team. Despite being the star of the league, Troy was not able to touch the height of glory and blames racism to it. The disappointment of not getting with his life the way he wanted to have turned into a slight bitterness which everyone can’t help but notice. However, bitterness is not the only thing one notices, his charming personality and amazing sense of humor usually takes it over.
Presence of Voila Davis as Troy’s wife, Rose, is like a fresh air in the movie. Lyons Maxson is Troy’s older son from his previous relationship and is talented musician while Cory Maxson is his son with Rose. Like his father, Cory has a special spot for football and wants to continue it as his profession. However, due to his personal bitter experience with it, Troy does not support his son’s passion at all. Troy still believes that even though things are better now, Cory’s dreams will be crushed due to the color of his skin. His bad experience is not the only thing that bothers Troy; there is also an element of jealousy that stops him from supporting his own son.
Troy’s relationship starts getting bad with Cory when he learns about him quitting his part time job for the sake of perusing football. Despite strict instructions from his dad to continue working on his job, Cory decides to go on with football. Troy does not take this and decides to take things in his own hands by forcing Cory’s coach to kick him out of the team. Cory lashes out at his father when he finds about Troy’s action behind his back.
Luck isn’t the best friend of Troy in this movie after Troy’s mistress gets pregnant with his child and he is left with no choice but reveal it to Rose that he’s been cheating on her. Their relationship is crushed once Rose learns about unfaithful actions of Troy, but still continues to live in the same house and even decides to raise Troy’s illegal daughter after her mother (Troy’s mistress) dies during child birth. The story moves on with the struggle between Troy and his loved ones.
Fences give some breath taking moments due to amazing performances of the finest actors especially by Washington who completely justified with his role of being producer, director and actor. However, there are few times that make it feel the story is being dragged with unnecessary scenes.