John David Washington and his sister, played by Danielle Deadwyler, argue in the trailer (below) for Netflix’ The piano lessonwhich was published on Wednesday.
“Do you feel that? That’s your family. That’s your blood,” David Washington, in the role of Boy Willie, says at one point in the trailer to a young woman (Skylar Smith) in the Charles family household as her hand runs over a piano decorated with the faces of family members carved by an enslaved ancestor.
Inside the 130-year-old piano, Boy Willie comes into conflict with his sister Berniece, played by Deadwyler. Willie plans to sell the heirloom to build the family fortune, while his sister wants to keep the only remnant of the family inheritance.
In the middle, her uncle, played by Samuel L. Jackson, tries to mediate in a family struggling to build a future by taking possession of a piece of land where their enslaved ancestors once worked, preserving a past that some would like to forget. The piano lesson The film is directed and co-written by Malcolm Washington, who directs in his feature film debut, while his father Denzel Washington serves as producer along with Todd Black.
In a statement from the director, Malcolm Washington said of his film, which depicts an eternal conflict between African-American families: “Boy Willie’s fate felt like my own, while I shared Berniece’s sensitivity and understanding of the gravity of the legacy. Like Berniece and Boy Willie, my goal is to honor the lives and legacies of my parents and our ancestors. I, too, come from a long line of women and men, some of whom were born into slavery and then freed from it, and my life is only possible because of the choices, sacrifices and actions of all of them. It is of utmost importance to me to do something meaningful with it. In Boy Willie’s words, ‘I am meant to build on what they left me.'”
The piano lessonco-written by Virgil Williams, will be released in select theaters on November 8 and will stream on Netflix on November 22. Jackson and David Washington reprise their roles from an earlier Broadway revival that also starred Danielle Brooks.
The ensemble includes Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Jerrika Hinton, Gail Bean and Corey Hawkins.
