MY SAY This is a story told largely inside the Charles home, engaging with the ghosts of the past and the pain of repressed memories as exemplified by the piano. It is heavy with metaphor and symbolism, exploring the ways in which the objects passed down through generations carry with them the burdens of history.

This film adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play falters in some specifics, but is still vital viewing.

That’s the underlying conceit of August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson, in which a piano passed down through generations of one Black family wields the power to unite that family, though it also threatens to drive them apart.

Alexandre Desplat channeled his love of Duke Ellington into the score of 'The Piano Lesson,' Malcolm Washington's feature directorial debut.

After 'Fences' and 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,' Denzel Washington's commitment to bring August Wilson's work to the screen continues.

The August Wilson adaptation “The Piano Lesson" is an impassioned family drama but it is also a profound ghost story.

Premiering at the Telluride & Toronto International Film Festivals in hopes of a long awards run, The Piano Lesson is the latest film adaptation of the work of playwright August Wilson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his original play version back in 1990.

But with “The Piano Lesson,” Wilson’s work has become a family affair. In 2015, Washington announced that he had made an arrangement with Wilson’s estate to adapt all ten of the plays included in Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle – also known as the Century Cycle.