In the early 1980s, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning African playwright August Wilson began writing a collection of ten plays known as the ‘Century Cycle’, with each work telling a story with regards to’concerning’with respect to the Black American undergo in a different decade. Fences was the first of these plays to acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure given the theatrical treatment in 2016, courtesy of director and star Denzel Washington, to whom Wilson’s plays possess’own’nurse been entrusted. In many ways Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s strengths are similar to Fences, with the intense’fierce’exquisite material and emotionally raw perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mances winning the day even when the transition from play to film isn’t so seamless.###It takes Ma (Viola Davis) almost 20 minutes of screen time to arrive at the recording session where much of Black Bottom takes place. Bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e then we meet her band — which includes Toledo (Glynn Turman), Slow Drag (Michael Potts), and religious band-leader Cutler (Colman Domingo) — bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e the camera eventually finds Levee (Chadwick Boseman), fresh from the purchase of some ostentatious yellow shoes. The banter between these four men early on straight away’in a flash’promptly’instantaneous’in a trice establishes a winsome dynamic between three wise old heads and their younger and cockier upstart. It allows them to go from cracking jokes on each other’s fashion sense to heavily philosophical discussions on a dime, and they do.###It’s in those discussions where the timelessness of Wilson’s writing, adapted in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, really shines through. Navigating an entertainment system that’s rigged against individual of colour, ownership over one’s art, and knowing your worth are all things that Black artists still grapple with today.###Washington called the shots on Fences, but in/with regard to’concerning’regarding Black Bottom he sought out George C. Wolfe. On paper, it makes sense: in addition to being a mega Wilson fan, Wolfe has had award-winning success directing plays on Broadway. The results here, however, are a bit of a mixed bag. He does a rosy’remarkable’fabulous’terrific’preeminent job of drawing you into the film’s sweat-slicked world (the play takes place in the winter, the film takes place in the summer), and a fun mini-montage mid-movie is one of the few ways the language of film augments the storytelling. But too often Black Bottom feels overly play-like, never more so than when Turman’s Toledo delivers his ‘African Stew’ speech with regards to’concerning’with respect to white exploitation. Taken in and of itself it’s powerful, but its placement in the movie is inelegant and it ends up feeling a touch heavy-handed.###It’s simultaneously thrilling and sorrowful’distressing’woeful’heartbroken’mirthless’dejected’dismal’lugubrious to watch Boseman in action here.###Thankfully, as screen and stage legend James Earl Jones once said, “It’s hard in/with regard to’concerning’regarding an actor to go wrong if he’s true to the words that August has written,” and e grossly one rises to the material admirably to tap into the in/with regard to’concerning’regarding ce of Wilson’s words. Davis is especially noteworthy: Ma’s fearless demeanour demanded an equally fearless perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance, and in her hands the titular songlay stress on’emphasize’highlight is entertainingly unapoloacquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure ic, whether she’s reminding eintensely’extremely’extraordinarily’enormously’awfullyone in her orbit who’s in charge, or seducing her female lover Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige). From Ma’s ostentatious appearance — Davis put on 20 lb in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the role, and Ma often wears a full face of make-up and even a set of gold teeth — to the swaggering dialogue, Davis utterly disappears into her larger-than-life character.###And then there’s Boseman. His Levee always seems to possess’own’nurse a glint in his eye, so sure is he of himself and his future stardom, and Boseman marries the high-energy flamboyance he brought to playing James Brown in Get On Up with the soulfulness he brought to the MCU’s T’Challa and so many others. It all comes to a head in two searing monologues in which Levee rages at God — a rare sight in/with regard to’concerning’regarding a Black man on screen, making it all the more visceral — and Boseman empties the clip in both scenes, eking out e grossly drop of emotion. It’s the finest perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance of a career that ended way too soon earlier this year, and it’s simultaneously thrilling and sorrowful’distressing’woeful’heartbroken’mirthless’dejected’dismal’lugubrious to watch him in action here.###It is, however, somewhat fitting that Boseman’s final bow is in an adaptation of an August Wilson play. A fan of the playwright since he was ten, in 2013 he wrote, “For the songs, rituals and folklore that were lost in slaintensely’extremely’extraordinarily’enormously’awfully’s middle passage, [Wilson’s] plays are those in/with regard to’concerning’regarding gotten songs remixed in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the struggles of adapting to these shores.” With the world in the midst of a racial reckoning, there’s no better time in/with regard to’concerning’regarding Wilson’s plays to once again be remixed in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the enormous’vast’massive’tremendous screen. On this evidence, we should all be looking in/with regard to’concerning’regarding ward to seeing more.