TMS Movie Review: American Fiction

(Claire Folger / Orion Pictures)

With my viewing of Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction this past weekend, I’ve now completed every film currently nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Some are very strong, like Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest. Some were solid, i.e. Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Celine Song’s Past Lives and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. And others could have been stronger [Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and now American Fiction]. I had a fun time watching Jefferson’s satirical dramedy on how black culture is portrayed in storytelling, but part of me also agrees with the general consensus that it could have been even better.

In modern day US, moderately successful novelist and college professor, Monk Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is invited back to his hometown, Boston, MA, for a book festival despite not having a book published in a whole decade. While visiting home, he discovers his mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) has been diagnosed with early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease and his brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) is reluctant to pitch in since his messy divorce. While Monk and next-door neighbor Coraline (Erika Alexander) begin courting, the writer turns in a pseudonym penned manuscript filled with cultural black stereotypes as a joke and is shocked when his agent, Arthur (John Ortiz), informs him a publishing house is interested in the book.

(Claire Folger / Orion Pictures)

Tracee Ellis Ross makes an appearance as Monk’s sister, Issa Rae plays the hot new novelist Monk feels threatened by, and Adam Brody is a Hollywood producer interested in adapting Monk’s latest story. American Fiction is adapted by Jefferson from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, and is the writer-director’s film debut after a decade of work as a TV writer. Besides Best Picture, Jefferson is nominated in Best Adapted Screenplay, and Wright and Brown are nominated for their performances in Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. There’s been a lot of conversations lately on how the comedy genre is all but MIA in modern times, and I think American Fiction could have easily been one of the newer releases to have revived it. The movie is very naturally funny and clever. Monk doesn’t believe what society perceives as ‘the black experience’ is actually relevant to real life, and writes about subjects that personally interest him instead. The satire is really effective during the moments when Monk has to deal with the fact that he’s gotten his best book deal by half-assing the story and caping into cliches he usually criticizes. What holds the film back unfortunately, are the dramatic moments with the Ellison family, which don’t really bring anything other than general melodrama to Monk’s arc. American Fiction had a lot of potential to be a solid satire on society and instead is ultimately a just okay dramedy about family. Though it doesn’t reach its full potential, the movie might still be worth a viewing just for the cast and comedic bits.