February 16, 2017 -- This is the last of the films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar that I saw, and it certainly is worthy, even if it isn't getting much love from the critics. It is certainly a better movie than “La La Land,” for instance, even though it has zero chance of winning the top prize. “La La Land” will almost certainly get most of the top Academy Awards later this month, because it is a movie about show business, and show business people, mostly older and white, make up most of the voters.

“Fences” is the only movie of the 10 nominees that was not shown in a local theater, which tends to not show movies with largely black casts (except for “Hidden Figures” which has done very well in the local theater, having been held over for weeks). The local theater even showed “Loving,” which surprised me, but “Fences” has not played here, so far.

“Fences” does not tell the kind of uplifting story Academy voters like, either. The story (written by the late August Wilson, based on his own play) is set in the 1950s, a tough time for a lot of people, but it was a particularly bad for people of color, who faced enormous barriers to advancement that have eased somewhat since then. The central character, Troy Maxson (played by Denzel Washington, who also directs this film) is a hard, bitter man who feels he was robbed by racism of a chance to play Major League Baseball, but that is not the whole truth.

Troy is a very complex character, who is on the one hand a gregarious joker, story teller, and hard-working garbage man for the city of Pittsburgh who provides as best he can for his family. On the other hand, he is an angry, bitter, needy ex convict who once killed a man and is trapped by his past.

Troy is emotionally supported by his faithful, long-suffering wife, Rose (played by Viola Davis of “The Help”) and by his best friend, Jim Bono (Stephen McKinley Henderson of “Manchester by the Sea”) also an ex-con garbage man. As the story opens, we see the gregarious story-teller side of Troy, as he holds forth on Friday afternoons with a bottle of liquor, celebrating the end of another long work week with Jim Bono and his family in his tiny back yard.

As the story moves on, we see darker layers to Troy's personality emerge, his criminal past, his unfaithfulness to his wife, and how much he owes his mentally challenged brother, Gabriel Maxson (Mykelti Williamson of “The Purge: Election Year”). Gabriel was seriously injured during the war, and Troy used a government payment to Gabriel to help buy his family's house. Even with that money, the family has just barely enough money to get by.

Troy's resentments poison his relationships with his sons, Cory (Jovan Adepo) and Lyons (Russell Hornsby). Lyons is a musician and Cory, the younger son still living at home, is a football star with a shot at college. Troy sabotages Cory's chance at college. Cory thinks that Troy is jealous of him, but that is only part of the story. Troy is also trying to protect his son from getting his heart broken by a racist society.

There are several emotionally shattering scenes in the film, Cory's dangerous fight with his father, Rose's confrontation with her husband over his unfaithfulness and Troy's awful story about his fight with his father which led him to leave home at age 14, walking hundreds of miles, looking for a place in America where he could have some kind of chance at a decent life. There is also a powerful scene in which Gabriel plays his trumpet and opens the pearly gates in the sky for his beloved brother.

The acting performances in this film are as good as any nominated film this year, and better than most. Viola Davis tears it up with her fantastic portrayal of a betrayed woman, and Washington is great as a magnificent, complicated, flawed husband and father. The supporting performances are also very strong in this film. You hear about how hard it was to get “La La Land” made, that's true, it did take six years from script to screen, but the “Fences” script laid around for 11 years before it made it to the big screen.

All things being equal, I think Denzel Washington and Viola Davis would be picking up Oscars later this month (and Davis should be in the lead actress category, not supporting, but she is the best actress in either category anyway) but all things are not equal. And, all things being equal, Taraji P. Henson would be in the running for best actress as well for her powerful starring role in “Hidden Figures,” but she wasn't even nominated.

This is hard to watch because it is such an uncompromising film, filled with so much anger and heartache, but its emotional power cannot be denied. It probably won't make my top 10 list for 2016, but those great acting performances will certainly show up in my top 10 lists. This film rates a B.

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