Although the last twelve months felt as though they dragged something chronic, the awards season appears to have come and gone in the blink of an eye with most of the big Oscar contenders still sitting unwatched in my watchlist. So Mark and I decided to make the most of some recent time off work and cross a few films off the list including George C. Wolfe’s drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Back in 2015, Denzel Washington announced that he was starting a decade long project in which he adapts all ten of August Wilson’s ‘Century Cycle’ plays for the big screen. The first of which was his 2016 Oscar winning Fences, directed by and starring Washington alongside Viola Davis, who won the Best Supporting Actress for her performance. Although for his second venture, Washington hands the directing duties to George C. Wolfe he does bring back Davis in the titular role, the legendary “Mother of the Blues”.

Ma Rainey is a fearless and combative woman who knows that her voice is the only leverage she has in a world owned by the white man, and she uses it to maintain some semblance of power over her agent and the recording studio’s manager, who want to bring Ma Rainey’s music to the masses. Unfortunately for them, she has already garnered a reputation as the ‘Mother of the Blues’ and she refuses to play the white man’s game. It’s Ma’s way or not at all.

In fact, it takes twenty minutes or so into the films 90 minute runtime before Ma shows up for her recording session in the sweltering heat of 1920’s Chicago. In the meantime we are introduced to her band as they set up and begin rehearsing in the damp basement of the studio. Band leader Cutler, bassist Slow Drag and piano player, Toledo, are the wise old heads of the group, happy to earn a wage doing what they enjoy, fully aware of their position in the world and careful not to jeopardise what they have. The final member of Ma’s band is Levee, a talented trumpeter with big ideas and ambitious plans with a tendency to do his own thing and an eye for Ma’s girlfriend, Dussie Mae.

As the band pass the time before Ma’s eventual arrival, they share stories but it doesn’t take long for tempers to flare hotter than the Chicago heat and the generations worth of black oppression and anger, long held bubbling just beneath the surface, burst forth to devastating effect.

With a very limited set – the majority of the content takes place in two rooms – and a dialogue heavy script, the film has not strayed very far away from the roots of its source material and emits a distinct play-like aura. Although I appreciate the commitment and honesty offered to Wilson’s work, I don’t feel that the approach translated particularly well on screen. And whilst it may appeal to critics and film connoisseur’s, the humble everyday Joe Bloggs cinema-goer may feel underwhelmed.

Although, I wasn’t particularly enamoured by the film as a whole, the strength of the individual performances is hard to ignore, which is reflected in its performance on the awards circuit receiving Oscar nominations for both Best Actor (Boseman) and Best Actress (Davis) but nothing for directing or the highly coveted Best Picture.

In much the same way as my opinions on Leonardo DiCaprio, I have something of a love-hate relationship with Viola Davis, there’s something I find off-putting about her that I cant quite put my finger on but I cannot deny the talent that she possesses. In Black Bottom, she delivers a fearless and unapologetic performance as Ma Rainey, commanding the room and screen with her gold teeth and larger-than-life persona.

Where Davis delivers more through what she does than what she says, Chadwick Boseman steals the show with a couple of passionate and visceral monologues that are made all the more poignant considering Boseman’s private battle with cancer and his untimely death a few months before the film’s release. The youthful arrogance, confidence and hope that he exudes is juxtaposed by the tired anger and reluctant acceptance of the older band members, delivering a devastating climax that is symbolic of the challenges faced by Black Americans for generations.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is available to stream on Netflix.