American Fiction [Review]
Cord Jefferson’s debut feature, American Fiction, is an incisive, hilarious satire.
Image: MGM Amazon Studios
Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a down on his luck novelist who hasn’t had a book published in over a decade, bitter and disdainful of his successful colleagues publishing fiction he deems to be beneath him. He’s placed on a forced leave of absence from his job as a professor because of a confrontation with a student, which appears to be the latest in a string of such incidents.
Monk goes to Boston for a book festival where he hears author Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) promote her new best-selling book, “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.” He hears her read a passage and is disgusted; he feels her book is trash, the latest example of a “Black” book that panders to stereotypes of Black trauma and the expectations of a white audience, stifling Black literature. Feeling frustrated, he decides to write a book like this himself, exaggerated and full of stereotypes, “My Pafology.” His agent (John Ortiz) is reluctant to send it to publishers, but Monk insists on doing it to prove a point. A publisher bites and Monk begrudgingly takes the money in order to care for his ailing mother. As success snowballs, Monk is forced to contend with the lie and pretend to be the over-the-top persona of his pen name, a wanted fugitive. Meanwhile, Monk must also deal with family tragedy—the death of his sister and mental decline of his mother—as well as juggling his book’s secret with a romantic relationship with a neighbor, Coraline (Erika Alexander).
Image: MGM Amazon Studios
Cord Jefferson has directed a remarkable debut feature with American Fiction, adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure. Jefferson was a writer for television, working on shows such as HBO’s Watchmen and Succession, and his writing here is equally sharp, full of snappy, witty dialogue. He deftly mixes biting satire about race and the publishing industry with tragic family drama.
Jeffrey Wright is brilliant in the role of Monk, playing it straight against the cartoonish characters of the publishing world. He feels very real, dealing with his family that he previously held at a distance as the stress of his predicament slowly takes over his life and as he realizes how he’s becoming his father—a man he didn’t know the truth about and his siblings resent. His siblings, played by Tracee Ellis Ross and Sterling K. Brown, are also excellent in their roles, feeling abandoned by Monk just as they were by their father and dealing with their own personal traumas.
I’m on the fence about the film’s very meta ending, but otherwise I loved American Fiction. It’s one of my top films of the year.
American Fiction opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 15, 2023, then expands to a wide release on December 22.
