American Fiction

I'm baffled by 2023's AMERICAN FICTION.  What is advertised as a go for the jugular satire on race perceptions and public taste is largely a bland, cliched dysfunctional family drama  directed in the most perfunctory manner humanly possible.  Cord Jefferson, you have a long way to go as an overseer.  Your TV origins, all too apparent.  As a writer? Eh, not bad, when you stick to the film's alleged purpose.  But for some reason his movie is overtaken by familial discord that was dramatically tired decades ago, and presented with all the texture of a Hallmark production.  It's some kind of dubious feat when a character is seen snorting cocaine off a stove while come hithering to his gay lover and it looks and feels like a commercial for multivitamin supplements.

Jeffrey Wright plays Thelonious "Monk" Jefferson, author and lit professor frustrated by his culturally sensitive students and the general public in about equal measure.  His novels are serious and erudite, and thus, not bestsellers.   He'll discover that even though they are not specifically about race, the books are filed under...at the bookstore.  Meanwhile, things like We's Lives in Da Ghetto, written by flavor of the year Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) fly off the shelves and despite (perhaps because of) outrageous stereotypes are embraced by Everymen and critic alike for their authenticity.    

In a moment of what might be the reverse of true inspiration, Monk hammers out his own potboiler.  A lurid tale of gang violence called My Pafology.  Perhaps a bit of therapy? Catharsis? Certainly not intended to be serious fiction.  More a brutal parody of the sort of trash that people on all ends of the taste spectrum seem to love.  He submits it to his agent, who is understandably reluctant to pass it on to publishers.  Guess what - they can't wait to release it and even offer a 750 K advance.  Also understandably,  Monk uses a pseudonym.  Heis later convinced by his agent to assume the persona of a convict on the lam.  This only boosts the book's popularity. 

Monk is dumfounded.  Sure, he needs the money for his mother's assisted living facility but what about integrity?  He tries to derail interest by insisting the book's title be changed to Fuck.  And, well you can guess the rest.

AMERICAN FICTION does work in those satiric moments, when Monk and his agent Arthur (John Ortiz) field increasingly ridiculous phone calls from publishers.  Also when Monk is asked to serve as a judge on the New England Book Association's Literary Award committee.  One of the other judges is, ha ha, Ms. Golden.  Scattered elsewhere are sly digs at the sort of white liberals who embrace all things black from the comfort of their penthouses and tony suburbs.  Some of the gags made me laugh out loud, including a commercial Monk sees on TV advertising programs celebrating African Americans. 

The Hollywood mockery bits feel very dated.  About twenty to thirty years too late.  This includes the film's ending, which was done much better in THE PLAYER. 

Most of the film centers on Monk's family. Mom (Leslie Uggams) has Alzheimer's, prompting some candid, often hurtful outbursts.  Brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) is estranged, a recently out of the closet hedonist (and plastic surgeon) whose wife and children left him to imbibe all the coke and young bucks he can manage.  Sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) is also a medical doctor who we barely meet, as she suffers a fatal heart attack early on.   The drama among them is nothing you haven't seen before and as pat as any unambitious cable movie.  AMERICAN FICTION would've benefited from an Alexander Payne-type approach for these scenes. 

There's also a romance between Monk and an attorney named Coraline (Erika Alexander), who lives across the street from the family beach house.  It too feels a bit too familiar but does trail off to a realistic destination.

Wright is always excellent.  He deserved a much better film around him. 

People have compared this movie to Spike Lee's BAMBOOZLED.  That film, while imperfect, had an energy and fire this one just doesn't.   Too bad.   The subject is more than ripe and in the right hands this could've been a modern day classic, a send-up worthy of the likes of George S. Schuyler or Nafissa Thompson-Spires.