John David Washington brings force and physical assurance to a leading role, but we are less persuaded by the quieter changes within it. His commitment is clear; the performances can stay fixed for too long.
Fi1m perspective
The Piano Lesson (2024) gives John David Washington a door to bang on at dawn, and his Boy Willie seems determined to wake the whole house. He talks at full volume, pressing his claim in the quarrel with his sister over a piano. We grew impatient because he kept pushing at the same strength long after we had understood how much he wanted his way. The energy is considerable, but Malcolm Washington’s film needs more changes of pace from its leading man.
The leading roles have asked for different uses of that force. Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018) gave him his breakthrough as undercover policeman Ron Stallworth; Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (2020) made use of his athletic ease in action. Malcolm & Marie (2021), an intimate two-hander, and the stage version of The Piano Lesson in 2022 put sustained dramatic exchanges alongside that action work. There is no shortage of willingness to take on different demands. Our reservations concern how much he changes once a performance is under way.
In Gareth Edwards’s The Creator (2023), his Joshua is so guarded that it becomes difficult to see him respond to anyone. Washington makes the withdrawal credible, and there is something admirable about declining to make a closed-off man immediately likeable. But the story depends on that man opening up, and he gives us too little to follow. Madeleine Yuna Voyles’s Alphie, solemn and curious, gives the film the responses we keep looking for in him. The familiar script deserves its share of the blame, but his stillness leaves his fellow actor doing too much of the work.
The contrast with Danielle Deadwyler in The Piano Lesson is equally instructive. Her Berniece stands with folded arms while Boy Willie talks, and we find ourselves watching her because Washington has already shown us how hard he intends to push. He makes the brother’s determination plain, yet the repeated insistence wears down the comedy as well as the argument. This remains energetic, committed acting in a film worth considering for its cast and August Wilson’s writing, though its slow middle does him no favours. For his next part, we would like a director to leave him room to be uncertain.
Biography
John David Washington is an American actor and former professional American football running back. The son of actors Denzel Washington and Pauletta Washington, he played college football at Morehouse College before signing with the St. Louis Rams as an undrafted free agent in 2006 and later playing in the United Football League.
He began his acting career with small roles as a child in Malcolm X (1992) and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). Washington gained prominence with his role as Ricky Jerret in the HBO series Ballers (2015–2019) and received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance as Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman (2018). He starred as the Protagonist in Christopher Nolan's Tenet (2020) and has since appeared in Malcolm & Marie (2021), Amsterdam (2022) and The Creator (2023).
Washington made his Broadway debut as Boy Willie in the 2022 revival of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson and reprised the role in the 2024 film adaptation directed by his brother Malcolm Washington.
