American Fiction (2023) | Dir. Cord Jefferson
Courtesy of Orion Pictures © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Written by: Belle McIntyre
“Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a highly educated author and professor of literature at a west coast university. He has published several works of highbrow fiction to moderate success. However, his most recently written book is getting no traction whatsoever and it is taking a toll on his attitude toward his students, colleagues, and the world in general. His normally calm, mildly misanthropic demeanor has vanished and been replaced by a quick-tempered intolerance and outbursts of sarcastic criticism. When his university insists he take a “leave of absence” and visit his family his reaction is to recoil at the idea. Nonetheless, he goes home to visit his family in Boston.
Claire Folger © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The interactions with his long overdue familial visit are lively, believable and cringe-inducing (ie. authentic) The locus of the Ellison family milieu consists of a comfortable upper middle class home in the city and a charming beach house on the Cape. His mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) is feisty and affectionate and seems to be suffering from dementia. His sister, Lisa, (Tracee Ellis Ross), a successful over-worked doctor at a hospital is handling the care of their mother. The strong sibling bond between Lisa and Monk is evident in their sparring banter from the moment she meets him at the airport. They are a study in contrasts and very lively together. His younger brother, Cliff, (Sterling K. Brown) is a bit of a disaster having lost his practice as a plastic surgeon, to his enraged ex-wife who took him to the cleaners when she found him in bed with a man. Cliff is processing this by abdicating all responsibility and embracing his “out” gay status with lots of sex, drugs, and manic behavior. Crucially to the family dynamic is the fact that Agnes has got to be moved to a care facility and all three of the siblings are financially strapped.
Claire Folger © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.
In the midst of all of this family business, Monk’s agent (John Ortiz) informs him that all the publishers are currently only interested in really “Black” books by Black authors. This enrages Monk who has managed to skirt the race obstacles by being a well-spoken, intelligent ivy league academic. When he goes to a reading of the current best-selling book by a Black author, “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto” by Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), he is appalled by the book and dismayed to realize that the author is clearly not a product of the ghetto. Merely a sell-out to the whims of the industry.
Courtesy of ORION Pictures Inc. © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Monk’s response is a wonderful boozy sequence where he sits down to write a “Black” novel. His characters appear in the room and perform the words as he writes a story that could have come from a Spike Lee film. He creates a nom de plume, Stagg R. Leigh, titles the book “My Pafology” and adopts the typical ghetto tropes and Ebonics lingo. He insists his agent send out the manuscript. He is trying to make a point of the hypocrisy of the industry. Spoiler alert – the publishers love it. Offers of huge advances come pouring in. Money being crucial creates a conflict of integrity. We have moved into “The Producers” territory. It is hilarious without being laugh-out-loud funny.
Claire Folger © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.
First time director and screenwriter, Cord Jefferson has written a subtle, slyly intelligent screenplay based on Percival Everett’s novel “Erasure” published 20 years ago. He has directed without the broadness of comic performances the material could have engendered. The ensemble is marvelous. His restraint has produced a work which lingers in the imagination as a serious comedy. He is one to watch.
