THE PIANO LESSON

In his directorial debut Malcolm Washington explodes the celebrated August Wilson play well beyond the bounds of the proscenium. Opening with a kinetic heist lit by a patriotic fireworks celebration in the deep south and the subsequent chase sequence and fiery vengeance, he soon situates us a quarter century later among a lively Pittsburgh household of dreamers as they reckon with the weight of a family heirloom haunted by decades of generational trauma.

Adapting theater — especially cherished pieces like this — for the screen can always be a challenge of avoiding staginess and actors emoting to the rafters. While that’s somewhat unavoidable with the enviably talented cast of absolute professionals that Washington’s assembled, he also uses facile camera movement, interesting framing, an exceptional soundtrack, and enlivening scene construction to let the proceedings breathe on screen. Scenes in the row house are counterbalanced with wide open flashbacks and vivid looks into the Black life in northern cities in the 1930s.

Still, the play’s the thing and his actors are the main attraction. Samuel L. Jackson luxuriates in the play’s rhythms, whether it’s spinning a chilling yarn or motivating a centerpiece musical number. As the brother who shows up unexpectedly in the middle of the night with a truckload of watermelons and a plan to claim a piece of family history for himself, John David Washington is a perpetual live wire, keyed to eleven with striving determination. The always exceptional Danielle Deadwyler, though, is the ground line among all these boisterous men, their ambitions, and sorrows. As their story of exorcising family demons and seeking reconciliation reaches its fevered conclusion, the film takes wild tonal swings whose success rests entirely on her revelatory performance as the film’s center of gravity.

THE APPRENTICE

Less incendiary than banal in its representation of the ascent of Donald Trump, Ali Abbasi spins an origin story of a pink-lipped doughy blond pawn of a malicious mastermind who grows into someone so wretched he makes Roy Cohn sympathetic. A nepo baby who never got enough love from a father whose wealth was built on discriminatory low-end housing, we meet him on an awkward date. When he locks eyes with the predatory attorney across a private club, it becomes a twisted romance of power by way of grotesque symbiosis.

Sebastian Stan captures the essence of the fame-obsessed young real estate developer without resorting to impression. Maria Bakalova imbues young Ivanna with a sense of plucky humanity. A reptilian Jeremy Strong sizzles as a ringleader left in the dust by a circus of his own creation. Like the wretched lawyer with a flair for blackmail, we watch with horror as the pupil gets a taste for win-at-all-costs power and becomes an ever shallower caricature of himself.

THE END

Set in an opulent series of bunkers carved out of salt caves deep below a burning earth, a wealthy family and a handful of employees have spent decades waiting out a catastrophe of their own making. They have an enviable art collection, hobbies to keep them occupied, and ample grow lights and aquaculture to keep themselves beyond comfortable while the earth above is consumed by fire. Joshua Oppenheimer makes radical use of movie musical form to interrogate the human necessity for self-delusion and what happens when its foundations crumble to ash.

As we watch their masks of carefully curated optimism slip when a newcomer joins their ranks, it’s impossible to ignore how each of us also obscure our own complicity in the fate of the world on a daily basis. Doubt, guilt, and a sense of pervading dread crack through the forced cheer of their golden-age songbook stylings. Heavy stuff, rendered in song, dance, and intricately realized performances that invite the urgency of reflection.

Oppenheimer has conducted a masterpiece of discomforting cinema. Michael Shannon towers as a cozily-comfortable titan of an industry that accelerated the apocalypses. Tilda Swinton is, as ever, a revelation as a mother in deep denial. As a son raised entirely in the underground bunker, George McKay’s performance is fearless and heartbreaking.

Despite their (and our) instincts for perpetual hope, one leaves with the gnawing message that the characters refuse say or sing out loud: We’re all doomed, there’s no way out.