Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ on Netflix, the Final (and Finest) Performance by Chadwick Boseman

Netflix original Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is poised to crack your heart wide open: it’s Chadwick Boseman’s final film. He passed away while the film was in post-production, and his passionate performance here may be his best, and an Oscar nomination sure seems likely. He’s one of the film’s pair of powerhouse acting displays, next to Viola Davis, who co-headlines the adaptation of August Wilson’s 1984 stage production, based on real-life blues-singing legend Ma Rainey. It’s another career highlight for Davis and a fitting curtain-closer for Boseman, who was in full bloom as an actor, and left us far, far too soon.

The Gist: Barnesville, Georgia, 1927. A crowd packs a tent to see Ma Rainey (Davis), dubbed “the mother of the blues.” She’s not from the never-let-’em-see-you-sweat school of performance. The hotter the better for Ma, it seems. She works. She gives, and the audience responds passionately. Her hotshot trumpet player, Levee (Boseman), takes a solo — and steps forward to take a piece of her spotlight. She side-eyes him with a look that says, that ain’t his place. Levee doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe pretends not to notice. He grins wide.

CUT TO — Chicago. A bustling street. Levee eyes a pair of creamy-white wingtips in a store window. The other guys in the band stand outside Hot Rhythm Recordings: leader and trombonist Cutler (Colman Domingo), pianist Toledo (Glynn Turman) and bassist Slow Drag (Michael Potts). Levee soon arrives, showing off his new $11 shoes. He’s cocky — so cocky, he wrote his own arrangement of Ma’s smash song Black Bottom. He insists the band rehearse it. It isn’t the version Ma is going to record today, but Levee doesn’t seem to care.

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