REVIEW: ‘The Piano Lesson’ Is Netflix’s Best

Period horror stories can be some of the best. The lack of technology pushes filmmakers and writers to craft stories bound by the limits of the imagination, with characters who use emotive tethers with the audience to make us feel something. Whether it’s fear, catharsis, or resolution, that’s the beauty that the genre brings. The Piano Lesson (2024), the latest adaptation of an August Wilson play from Netflix, embodies the beauty of horror through the complexities of people.

The film’s structure doesn’t immediately raise alarm bells. In The Piano Lesson, a family clashes over an heirloom piano. Brother Boy Willie (John David Washington) and sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) fight to keep or sell the piece of family history. Carved into the piano is a history of the Charles Household, and the conflict in the film is the idea of the past. Are we beholden to the people who came before us? Do they help us? Or are we haunted?

The Piano Lesson offers a somber look at legacy without losing a strong hold on hope as the Charles household comes together through the worst of times. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano, make a fortune, buy farmland, and become someone. He wants to escape where they are, move forward, and leave the past in the past. Berniece, on the other hand, is dedicated to doing anything necessary to preserve the very last piece of the Charles family heritage. To her, the piano is the family.

The Piano Lesson is about family and the complexities it brings to who we are.

Between them, their uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to mediate, but he can’t even hold back the ghosts of the past as they start to bubble to the surface. Over time, we meet new faces at the Charles home. We hear music and see joy. We see anger and worry.

We watch a family struggle to reckon with who they were and are now. A look at resiliency and how different generations leave struggle and brilliance for those who come next, The Piano Lesson offers transcendence, just not in the way you might think at the beginning.

At its core, the film reveals startling truths about how we perceive the past and who gets to define our legacy. It holds nothing back while tasking its characters with the daunting task of looking in a mirror. While the film may be a period story, it is timeless.

The Piano Lesson captures the worry of being stuck and, more importantly, the realization that the histories that live inside us hold both painful stories and resilient tales of triumph. But we only see both if we choose to listen.

A directorial debut for Malcolm Washington, The Piano Lesson is co-written by Virgil Williams and Malcolm Washington, with Denzel Washington and Todd Black serving as the film’s producers. A monumental debut feature film, it also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, and Corey Hawkins.

Danielle Deadwyler and John David Washington are exquisitely powerful.

I dare you to press play, not hum along, not hold your breath, or feel relief in the film’s finale. Musically, The Piano Lesson stands heads and tails above other scores this year, so much so that I wish I could have experienced it in a theater.

But the score and the music succeed because of the people. The characters make the score electric, bringing Alexandre Desplat’s compositions to life. The film is kinetic and dynamic and reveals the multitude of emotions that run through one house and the generations that call it home.

The Piano Lesson is the best-acted film, thanks to Danielle Deadwyler and John David Washington. The duo seals in the film’s timeless magic, which echoes deeply from screen to heart. An adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork, The Piano Lesson is one of Netflix’s most beautiful and emotive films.

The Piano Lesson (2024) is streaming now exclusively on Netflix.