Tag Archives: Danielle Deadwyler

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Promised Land

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40 Acres

by Hope Madden

At one time, a lot of people were promised 40 acres and a mule. It was a lie. But Hailey Freeman’s ancestor had freed himself, left his family behind, and walked to Canada to make his own promises. Generations later, Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler, a force of nature) will be damned if the apocalypse, wandering cannibals, or a teenage boy’s hormonal behavior is going to jeopardize that farm.

Co-writer/director R.T. Thorne’s post-apocalyptic horror/thriller feature debut 40 Acres benefits early and often from inspired framing, gorgeous shot making, and one remarkable performance. Indeed, Deadwyler is so good that sometimes the cast around her can’t keep up.

She’s the matriarch of the Freeman farm and she’s a hard woman. She has to be, but the land is providing for the family, and the family is protecting it from those outside the electric fence and barbed wire who might want to come inside.

The bigger problem might be Hailey’s oldest, Manny (Kataem O’Connor), whose restlessness and desires put the family at risk.

Thorne uses flashbacks sparingly, which gives them some weight. Wisely, these serve less to explain the apocalypse than to hint at relationships and character, because, naturally, the real story here is not the flesh eaters moving from farm to farm, but the strains of coming of age within this pressure cooker.

Many films—horror movies, in particular—rely on terrible decision making to move the plot forward. 40 Acres weakens as it moves from Act 2 to Act 3 with wildly bad character choices. But something has to trip this family up so Thorne can show off remarkable instincts for action cinematography, as well as his lead’s range.

Yes, we know Danielle Deadwyler—snubbed by Oscar for her searing performances in The Piano Lesson (2024) and Till (2022)—is a magnificent actor. One of the best working today. But you might not realize (unless you’ve seen her fantastic 2019 thriller Devi to Pay) that she’s also quite at home in genre films. The degree to which she brings authenticity to her role as an Army veteran annihilating redneck cannibals with machetes is breathtaking.

Michael Greyeyes (Wild Indian, Blood Quantum) delivers needed warmth and humor, and he and Deadwyler share a touching chemistry. A full slate of nasty marauders impresses, especially veteran genre actor Patrick Garrow.

The writing periodically drags 40 Acres backwards, particularly the budding romance and related choices. But for thrills-aplenty action with something on its mind, you could do worse than this.

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Shadow Dancing

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The Woman in the Yard

by Hope Madden

Exciting news! There’s a new scary movie starring Danielle Deadwyler—you know, who should have  been Oscar nominated in 2024 for The Piano Lesson and in 2022 for Till? Well, the Academy may not appreciate her talent, but horror does. Deadwyler leads director Jaume Collet-Serra’s new Blumhouse PG-13 scarefest, The Woman in the Yard.

Deadwyler plays Ramona. Newly widowed and still badly battered from the wreck that took her husband, Ramona wakes up one morning to a power outage, sick dog, irritated children, and a creepy woman in her front yard. Give her strength.

Peyton Jackson impresses as the adolescent son, pushing boundaries partly because of his age, partly because of necessity. The authenticity of his interplay with Deadwyler rattles you, each act of rebellion ratcheting tension inside the farmhouse everyone is afraid to leave and not entirely sure why.

Okwui Okpokwasili cuts an impressive figure as the Woman—elegant, hypnotic, and terrifying. The film’s entire cast consists of five people, but you never tire of them and each pulls their weight.

The cast’s commitment, chemistry, and the anxiety they build help the film feel more robust than it really is. An obvious metaphor finely cloaked in veils, shadows, and leg braces, The Woman in the Yard sometimes feels a little slight.

Sam Stefanak’s script skirts awfully close to being an American remake of an Australian classic. So close that I won’t mention the title to avoid spoilers. But Collet-Serra has fun with shadows, and his off-kilter camera work draws attention to how tightly the story comes together.

And, of course, Deadwyler’s excellent. She mines the character for the depths necessary to pull off the horror. You feel for Ramona, but you may not like her, and you probably don’t trust her. It’s a fascinating performance and fearless in many ways.

The film around her is no masterpiece, but it is a solid piece of genre filmmaking enlivened by bright performances and dark, nasty shadows.

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Play It With Feeling

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The Piano Lesson

by George Wolf

You can often find ghosts lurking in the plays of August Wilson. His characters work to forge a better future for their families, haunted by the trauma and systemic racism that has beaten them down for generations.

Those themes also define Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, while a vengeful spirit from the past adds a layer of the supernatural to director and co-writer Malcolm Washington’s debut feature.

Malcolm’s brother John David Washington plays Boy Willie, who brings his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) and a truck full of watermelons to visit his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) and uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) in 1936 Pittsburgh.

Boy Willie’s plan is to buy a piece of farm land back home in Mississippi, and all he needs is cash he’ll get from selling all the watermelons…and the family piano sitting in Berniece’s living room.

That second part is going to be a problem.

The piano is an important piece of the family’s history, and we feel its weight thanks to the way these remarkable actors – several of whom also played their roles on Broadway – illuminate Wilson’s wonderful prose. The well-defined living room scenes recall the film’s Pulitzer Prize-winning stage roots, while Malcolm Washington displays understated skill with weaving in more cinematic shades.

Flashbacks to the early 1900s deepen the resonance of what Berniece holds dear, and add to the mystery of the ghost sightings that occur upstairs. Visits from the talented Wining Boy (Michael Potts) spur breaks into song, allowing the musical pieces (and another moving score from Alexandre Desplat) to provide more organic building blocks toward a memorable narrative.

As a strong-but-cautious woman fighting for both her past and her future, Deadwyler is an award-worthy revelation. John David Washington has never been better, managing an impressive balance between Boy Willie’s manic ambition and his sobering reality. Mother and daughter Paulette and Olivia Washington join the ensemble, with Denzel and daughter Katie Washington’s producer credits rounding out the true family affair.

And for a story so deeply rooted in family legacy, that seems only right. The Piano Lesson is played with a committed intensity of feeling, giving a symphony of talent the room to honor its source material with lasting resonance.

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TV Guide

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I Saw the TV Glow

by George Wolf

Fulfilling the promise of 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, writer/director Jane Schoenbrun’s follow-up, I Saw the TV Glow, is a hypnotically abstract and dreamily immersive nightmare of longing.

Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) meet as very introverted teens, drawn together by their love of “The Pink Opaque,” a Saturday night series on the Young Adult Network.

Maddy’s basement offers shelter from her violent stepdad, while Owen has to join her there in secret, away from the sheltering grasp of his mother (always great to see Danielle Deadwyler) and father (Fred Durst!).

Together, the teens escape into the weekly adventures of two young women (Helena Howard, Lindsey Jordan) who connect across the psychic realm to battle monsters sent by the evil Mr. Melancholy.

But then the show is cancelled, the basement TV is left in flames on the front lawn, and Maddy vanishes without a trace.

As the film wanders through the advancing years and Owen sometimes comments through the fourth wall, Schoenbrun layers Eric Yue’s cinematography and a captivating soundtrack to craft a completely transfixing pastiche of color, light, sound and shadow.

Smith (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) is heartbreakingly endearing, while Lundy-Paine (Bill & Ted Face the Music) provides a revelatory turn of alienation and mystery. It’s hard to take your eyes of either one of them, with Schoenbrun often framing their stares through close-ups that become as challenging as they are inviting.

And that feels organically right. Because Schoenbrun is channelling characters who imagine life as someone else, to again emerge as a challenging and inviting filmmaker with a thrillingly original voice.

Worlds’ Fair got our attention – and A24’s. Now I Saw the TV Glow is here to get in our heads.

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The Hills Are Alive

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The Devil to Pay

by Hope Madden

I’ve long felt that pre-film text-on-screen quotes are a cinematic crutch, often pretentious musings that rarely capture the essence of the film about to unspool.

Then, over a colorful vista of misty Appalachian mountaintops and plaintive banjo strings I read about the hardy folk populating those peaks, the descendants of criminals and oppressed alike who sought refuge in this inhospitable place.

As shadow creeps across the landscape, the quote:

“They want nothing from you and God help you if you try to interfere.” – 2010 census worker

Welcome to The Devil to Pay, Lane and Ruckus Skye’s lyrical backwoods epic, grounded in a lived-in world most of us never knew existed.

The tale is anchored with a quietly ferocious turn by Danielle Deadwyler (who also produces) as Lemon, a hardscrabble farmer trying to keep things up and wondering where her husband has been these past days.

Deadwyler’s clear-eyed efficiency is matched with the hillbilly condescension of one Tommy Runion (Catherine Dyer, flawless), whose homespun advice and cheer mask a dead-eyed, sadistic sense of right, wrong and entitlement.

One of the most tightly written thrillers in recent memory, The Devil to Pay peoples those hills with true characters, not a forgettable villain or cliched rube among them. The sense of danger is palpable and Deadwyler’s commitment to communicating Lemon’s low-key tenacity is a thing of beauty.

Hell, the whole film is beautiful, Sherman Johnson’s camera catching not just the forbidding nature of Appalachia, but also its lush glory.

Yes, the cult that lives just outside the county line does feel a tad convenient, but again, the Skyes and their outstanding cast carve out memorable, realistic and terrifying characters.

The Devil to Pay remains true to these fascinating souls, reveling in the well-worn but idiosyncratic nature of their individual relationships—a tone matched by sly performances across the board. And just when you think you’ve settled into a scene or a relationship, The Devil to Pay shocks you with a turn of events that is equal parts surprising and inevitable.

It’s a stunning film and a rare gem that treats Appalachians, not as clichés, but certainly not as people to be messed with.

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In the Name of the Son

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Till

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Get to know Danielle Deadwyler.

Last year she stole scenes in the super-star-studded Western spectacle The Harder They Fall. In 2019, she seared through the screen in Lane and Ruckus Skye’s woefully underseen (See it! Do it!) Devil to Pay. And now she carries the weight of the world with grace as Mamie Till-Mobley in Chinonye Chukwu’s remarkable Till.

Deadwyler is hypnotic, a formidable presence as a woman who endures the unendurable and then alters history.

And Chukwu wastes no time making this history come alive.

For decades, we’ve mostly been shown the same faded, B&W snapshot of Emmett Till. Chukwu, as director and co-writer, bathes us in color and warmth from the opening minutes.

Mamie and her teenage son Emmett aka “Bo” (Jalyn Hall, charming and heartbreaking) share loving and tender moments as he prepares to leave Chicago and visit family in Mississippi. Deadwyler delivers Mamie’s apprehension with tense stoicism, and her eventual grief with gut-wrenching waves of pain.

Chukwu’s overall approach to the period piece offers hits and misses. The vibrant palette brings urgency to the past while fluid camerawork puts you in the parlors, courtrooms, streets and churches, making you part of the history you’re watching. It’s a beautiful film.

At the same time, much of the plotting, score and script fall back on tropes of the period drama. This comes as a particular disappointment given the filmmaker’s fresh and resonant approach to her 2019 drama, Clemency.

And yet, Chukwu mines these familiar beats for organic moments that create bridges to today. Victim blaming, character assassination, trial acquittals and the intimate helplessness of systemic oppression are all integral parts of this story, and ours. Those are ugly truths, but Till never loses its sense of beauty. There’s a remarkable grace to the film, even as it is reminding us that this American history is far from ancient.

There’s no denying Deadwyler, whose aching, breathtaking turn is certain to be remembered this awards season. In her hands, Mamie’s hesitant move to activism is genuine and inspiring, but it is always grounded in loss.

That loss is the soul of Till, a film that paints history with intelligence and anger as it honors one mother’s grief-stricken journey of commitment.