It’s fair to say that in much of modern media, the tendency to stereotype and dumb down complexity for the average consumer is a common occurrence. Taken further, this has often been the case with the portrayal of certain groups. In the case of American Fiction, first time director Cord Jefferson has crafted a stinging evisceration of American cinema’s frequent oversimplification of the lives, relationships, and the treatment of African Americans.
Based on Percival Everett‘s 2001 book, Erasure, the film follows the story of the awkward and brilliant writer and professor, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright). He’s a man who is out of step with not only his peers and his entire family, but his understanding of his place in the world.
His latest book, a reworking of Aeschylus’ The Persians, can’t find a publisher, as it, ‘doesn’t speak to the Black experience’. To add insult to injury, the books that are selling well are, as he sees it, pitiably contrived misery porn about African American stereotypes. Worse still, he’s been quietly placed on administrative leave for upsetting his Gen Z students, and while visiting his family home in Boston, tragic events keep him there, caught in the midst of the various sibling and parental woes surrounding him.
In his irked dwam, he ghost-writes a satirical novel, My Pafology, under the pseudonym Stagg R. Lee. Even though the book is a thinly veiled mockery of the slang-filled, stereotype-laden ‘Black author’ books he hates, to his horror it’s immediately snapped up by the publishers and blooms into an overnight success. He’s forced to pretend to be Lee, while hiding his shameful success from his family and friends.
The brilliance of American Fiction is that it’s not only a cutting indictment of both the predominately white publishing and film industries, but it’s also a genuinely charming and hysterically funny romp. Like the best comedies, the film is also tinged with sadness and melancholy. Much of the film’s runtime is devoted to showing facets of the difficult, messy and decidedly uncinematic dynamics between Monk, his siblings, and his dementia-afflicted mother (Leslie Uggams). It’s here where the film truly shines, as it pointedly eschews the formality of pat Hollywood or New York Times Bestseller logic, and paints a painfully real, but utterly unstereotypical portrait of Black American life.
Wright is brilliant as Monk, and while it’s far from the first time he’s played hyper intelligent, bookish, and insular characters, he’s rarely been given the room to let them breathe and live like this. He’s also surrounded by a cadre of brilliant performances, with John Ortiz killing it as his beleaguered agent, and Erika Alexander as the romantically inclined neighbour who catches his eye. The knockout of the film however is Sterling K. Brown as Monk’s recently-come-out-of-the-closet brother, Clifford. He steals every scene, playing the perfect balance of loving family and infuriating little brother.
It’s no wonder that the film is sporting a clutch of Oscar nominations. It’s a film for which everyone brought their A-game, and is surely destined to be a classic in years to come.
On General Release Now