What a sad movie to start of with but whatever.
First Thoughts
I was hooked from the first word. Fences is an endearing movie from the first few seconds, when you hear the banter between Denzel's character Troy and Stephen Henderson's character Bono.
Summary
Denzel plays a married 50 year old man disappointed with his life after impregnating his wife Rose, going to jail for some 15 years, getting out, and having another child, and only being able to buy a house because his brother, Gabriel, got paid after getting a plate put in his head from an injury sustained in combat while in the Army, leaving him mentally handicapped. All the while claiming to be excellent at baseball, though not allowed to play in his prime due to his color. Now he works picking up garbage and works with his friend Bono. His oldest son, Lyons, is a musician and has some unsettled resentment about growing up without him while his younger son, Cory, wants to go into a career playing football. Troy is determined throughout the movie to not let his son play football and each time he makes a mistake, Troy tells him he just got another strike and "don't you strike out." The climax of the movie is the moment when after a sincere prompting from Bono, Troy explains to his wife that he has been having an affair and the woman, Alberta, is pregnant, and he is not going to leave her. Previously seen in the movie, Gabe wanders the streets talking about seeing Saint Peter and needing to sound the trumpet he always carries on his person to open the gates to let peoples' souls in for judgment. To get money, Troy, who before advocated for his brother's continued freedom, puts Gabe in a home which causes even more tension between Rose and Troy. When Alberta has the baby she dies, leaving the child without a mother. Troy asks Rose to be the mother and she agrees because the child is innocent but tells him he is "a woman-less man." The movie ends with the family reuniting for Troy's funeral: Rose mothering the child, Cory having joined the Marine, Lyons serving time, and Gabriel from the home. Cory almost doesn't go because of his grudge, but Rose explains to him how Troy's tough love made Cory better. Gabe, then is able to sound one good note on his trumpet and the family see a light in the sky.
Review
The way they communicate really draws you in and enchants you. Never in my life have I seen people talk like that. Troy Maxson reminds me of my father from when I was young. Harsh and distant, but always meaning well and proclivity for a specific sport, not the same mind you, but both having a magnificent physical excellence. They way he treats both his children is similar to how he used to treat my older siblings. My father would tell amazing stories, not about death or the devil but they would almost always make us laugh and feel close to him. Sometimes though he would tells us stories of him and his father and growing up in a 3rd world country, in a house made of concrete with dirt floors. My father was always openly loving to my mother. This whole movie was very relate able to me because the plot hinges on the infidelity, which for me is similar to when my sister left our house. The most intense scene, the argument after Troy reveals the truth, in the movie made me cry. Actually I cried a few times during the movie, which is impressive because I don't usually cry during movies. I did not see it coming that he had already impregnated Alberta. It eats you up inside when Rose yells her feelings about their life together and it was bad when he told his wife he wouldn't stop seeing her but the part that really killed me was after Alberta dies, how he gets up from the bed and stumbles and moans, gets short of breath. Having experienced similar abandonment, I very much relate to the wife, who hasn't had to invite that into the house, it wasn't real in a sense, because she didn't have to see him faun or flirt or anything with this other woman, he just wasn't around, but to see him so affected after her death, is like ultimate betrayal. You realize he really did care for her. It is a very moving movie, I loved it but it has some heavy sadness for anyone who has ever been abandoned by someone, or cheated on. The way the movie was shot really makes you feel like you are apart of all the conversations.
WARNINGS:
They use the N-word a lot, but it is always between black people in a pet name sort of way.