Denzel Washington directs and stars in this movie about a poor black family living in the 1950s city of Pittsburgh. The story centres upon Troy Maxson; a sanitation worker (garbage collector). His wife Rose (played very well by Viola Davis) has been married to him for 18 years. They have one mid teenage son Corey, who loves his sports and is good enough to get noticed for a potential career as a college football star.

It must be said: I judge the quality of a movie not only by the performances, dialogue, direction and production values (and if I yawn) but also the message the story conveys (otherwise it’s just aimless voyeurism). Overall, the message of Fences doesn’t really sit well with me.

Troy comes across as an opinionated and congenial older middle-aged man who occasionally shows his passive aggressive bitter-old-man side to his friend and family; he was a talented baseball player in his day but due to the color bar at the time missed out on the major leagues.

Fences is a Broadway play that was written by August Wilson who won a Pulitzer Prize for this story. Washington and Davis both won Tony Awards for their stage performance and SAGs for their screen effort (Washington recently added a 2017 NACCP Image Award to his already large cabinet).

The promotions for this movie states that this black family struggles with race relations – there is little evidence of that here in this film. In fact, the only discrimination issue centres on whether there should be colored drivers of garbage trucks (that takes up a few minute of the entirety of the film and is triumphantly resolved).

A telling moment in the film is when his friend Bono (played by Stephen Henderson ) tells Troy, when he is constructing a backyard fence: ‘Some people build fences to keep people out and others to keep people in.’ This theme lingers throughout the story but we feel, often times throughout that Troy does many things to push people away.

For example: when your own son (played so well by Jovan Adepo) asks you in one poignant moment of the movie: “Why don’t you like me?” As a viewer, you know that is not an easy question for a child to ask their father (especially one he fears). When a question like that is asked, we know a child feels betrayed or is disliked by a parent, over many years, by someone he adores and looks up to. A child identifies with their parent and when this belief is thrown into confusion by inexplicable negative behaviour shown toward them; we know few things are more painful in life than an identity crisis; especially for a child.

The parent in this case, and repeated many times over in our society, would feel they are teaching the child a harsh, yet valuable life lesson: ‘no one owes you anything,’ But really what for? If you can’t receive unconditional love, guidance, support and affection from your own parents; who else are you going to get it from?

What I don’t like about these men is their bottom rung illusion of moral superiority. What I mean by the bottom rung is: they accept that they do low-skilled menial jobs in society and they believe they are at the bottom rung of the social ladder- akin to the Lower Class that some people look down upon. They grudgingly accept this as an unfair fact of their lives, yet endure it because somehow they are at least superior to their wife, kids and any pets they can kick when they come home.

They often talk in the family home, and to their friends, as if they have some moral authority of being poor and will occasionally dispense their pearls of wisdom: that deep down they are really a good person that has learned from a harsh life. They have been wronged in life and their conscience is clear; a type of martyr complex – they are ‘right’ in god’s eyes. They may not be educated or intelligent but they have ‘common sense,’ and have exploited no-one.

I cringed. I’ve also heard the: “We’re so poor we don’t have a pot to piss in,’ speech a few times growing up. (I used to get the gritted teeth moral child abuse excuse: ‘this hurts me more than it hurts you,’ belting (no doubt influenced by the centuries old: ‘Spare the rod spoil the child,’ religious mandate many families adhered to). That’s why Fences disturbs me. We are not talking of a distant father who has been traumatised by war or crippled by a job injury. Troy is no saint. He has a dark past and has even taken advantage of his brother’s war compensation to buy himself a house. His unfaithful philandering has consequences that other people are expected to pick up the pieces for. His wife tearfully reminds him she has stood in the same place with him with powerful rhetoric: “What about my life?” Troy is quick to tell people to be responsible for their behaviour but glaringly refuses to do the same; even going so far as not giving unconditional faithfulness to his wife.

The only valuable message I got from this film is the taboo life truth (most people won’t or will ever accept): that sometimes your own parents can be your own worst enemy and, by use of subtle and outwardly noble reasoning; will often jealously and selfishly act to sabotage or destroy your dreams. Like in the film, I learned early on in life: that if I didn’t look so good; the people around me didn’t look so bad. If you rose above your station in life, you literally risked emotional or physical violence. Troy’s son Corey knows the real reason his father frustrates and deters him from following his football dreams. Jealousy has many masks and excuses: like Troy’s lame reasoning defence of only looking out for the boy so he keeps a job. Troy is not a good father: any father who leaves a lifelong painful gaping hole-in-the soul of their child cannot dismiss their neglect by saying; as your biological father I only have ‘a duty’ to provide a roof over your head and meals and nothing else.

In my career (and life experiences) I have come across many acts of abuse and neglect of this type and the culprit’s reasoning usually is: “It happened to me as a child.” We all have ‘demons’ or ‘crosses to bear’ no matter how unjust – and the last thing we should do is pass them onto our loved ones; especially our children. I have no doubt these cycles are intergenerational i.e. ‘My father belted me, his father belted him and his father’ and so on and so forth going back to the Stone Age. But somewhere, and at some point, it has to stop (especially in poor disadvantaged families looking to escape the poverty trap). A better message here would have been: of arresting the cycle of abuse. This would be far more noble than a flawed patriarch sewing painful confusion and hurting the ones who deeply love and cared for him.

In science there is something called the Max Plank Maxim. This suggests that people in positions of influence in the world don’t really change they just die out. It’s only when a new generation of younger ones, coming up, that seek to implement long overdue changes with their more liberal reformist views. We can tell his son Corey, later as a grown man, is going to be a much better human being than his father.

Denzel Washington is a great actor of both stage and screen. He is one of a handful actors that can appear in any movie- no matter how bad- and still make you enjoy the experience (other quick mentions are John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Meryl Streep and Sam Rockwell). Fences is well directed and shows these experienced actors know their characters inside out. I enjoyed the performances but the message is morally ambiguous- now and in any time of history; the Troys of this world shouldn’t be admired as quiet noble men ‘who meant well,’ and make it into heaven; but as tragic victims of a racial or class poverty trap that simply deserves our pity.

Fences has great performances, but has a strange message of finding quiet nobility in family dysfunction that the lead character simply doesn’t deserve: 3 Stars

Directed by Denzel Washington.