After Deadwyler’s starring turn in Till in 2022, I wrote that in the film she was “teetering on the brink of giving into her grief throughout, eyes teary and rage simmering” and that the performance was “gripping” and “devastating.” Deadwyler was shut out of most of the major award show nominations (except for the NAACP Image Awards which should, in my opinion, hold as much weight as an Oscar — unfortunately, in Hollywood, it does not). In The Piano Lesson, grief is also sitting at the surface of every sentence Berniece utters. And when she lets the rage out, it’s electrifying. The Piano Lesson propels Deadwyler into the rarified air of actresses who are so good that they can do anything. From Miranda in Station Eleven to Cuffee in The Harder They Fall to Mamie Till-Mobley and now Berniece, Deadwyler has proved she has innate talent that most of her peers would kill for and that when it comes to her range, she’s peerless. When The Piano Lesson opened at TIFF, Deadwyler was also premiering a small Canadian film called 40 Acres (yet to be acquired and released) where she plays a woman defending her family and their farm against cannibals in a post-apocalyptic world. She’s so good in it I wanted to throw popcorn at the screen (in lieu of a shoe) in admiration. Whether it’s an intimate indie or a heavyweight awards contender, if Deadwyler is on screen, I will be seated.
