You may think I prioritized this new Netflix release because it's popular right now and/or because it has the final role of the late Chadwick Boseman. In truth, I hadn't known about the casting. No, the main reason is that I was familiar with the title among plays and have been rather missing live theater this year. It hardly matters that I saw another August Wilson adaptation produced by Denzel Washington half a year ago.
In summer 1927, real-life singer Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (Viola Davis) and four instrumentalists gradually assemble at a Chicago recording studio to make a blues album. This is not as uneventful as it sounds. Ma is in full diva mode, upstart trumpeter Levee (Boseman) is possibly even more annoying in his cockiness, the ceiling fan doesn't work, and they are all keenly aware that social conditions aren't great for Black people even up north. Studio owner Mel (Jonny Coyne) and manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos) show no overt racism or rudeness, unlike the glaring bystanders outside, but you can bet they'd pay White performers better and put them in a more comfortable room.
Ostensibly, the title refers to an innocent dance song named after a Detroit neighborhood, but an obvious other meaning comes into use. Indeed, I was right to suspect a level of irreverence far beyond Fences or The Piano Lesson. There's no shortage of swearing (even putting aside the N-word), the climax involves a surprising degree of violence, Levee gets hot and heavy with visitor Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), and it's highly evident that she's on no less erotic terms with Ma. If the film departs from the 1984 play in any significant way, that last detail is probably it.
Other characters include Cutler (Colman Domingo) on guitar and trombone, Toledo (Glynn Turman) on piano, Slow Drag (Michael Potts) on bass, and Sylvester (Dusan Brown), Ma's young nephew, whom she insists on having introduce the opening number despite his stutter. Nepotism much? Ma does privately indicate that she deliberately gives folks like Mel and Irwin a hard time, reaching for whatever power she can grab in this world. But it's hardly fair for her to jump on everyone else from time to time, including Sylvester, just to have things exactly her way. And how bold do you have to be to chew out an officer on the verge of arresting you for assault and battery? Even a rich White man would be taking a big risk there.
Levee is not as immediately confrontational or irritable, but his late entrance after buying fancy shoes on a whim doesn't bode well for him seeing eye to eye with the older musicians, especially Cutler and Toledo. He claims to be the only man of talent in the room. He has the most sycophantic approach to Mel but assures the others he's hiding deep resentment. Whenever you hear drums on screen, it doesn't mean somebody in the building is practicing; it means Levee's thinking of murder.
Viewers of a religious mindset should take warning that Levee goes on a misotheistic rant in front of devout Cutler, saying the Christian God must hate Black people to let them suffer and not strike down their oppressors. Never mind that nothing happened in life to the oppressors of Jesus and the apostles either. I get that Levee's traumatic family past has shaped his outlook, but when a major character states a controversial opinion and never revises it, I worry that it reflects the author's position.
I'm afraid I've largely lost my taste for programs that express a lot of frustration for how things are and don't offer a satisfying resolution. Are we to feel that there is no hope? Or that Ma has the right idea in being a pushy jerk? The setting doesn't help; are we to feel unremittingly sore over the way things were long ago? Do the makers think almost nothing's changed, or should we be relieved at what has? The best lesson I can discern is that we should be more careful than Levee in handling our anger, lest it be misaimed, disproportionate, and self-defeating.
From what I gather, MRBB tells the same basic story as on stage. I think I would have preferred it there, but at least I can appreciate the talents of Davis and especially Boseman.
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