Movie Review: ‘American Fiction’

NEW YORK (OSV News) – In his feature debut, “American Fiction” (Amazon MGM), writer-director Cord Jefferson pulls off an impressive balancing act. In adapting Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” Jefferson successfully blends wry social satire with the serious tale of an emotionally isolated central character.

The result, overall, is a cinematic treat. However, distasteful ingredients, including off-base values and often salty dialogue, are included in the recipe as well. Their presence may spoil the potential fun to be derived from the film even among the adults for whom it’s acceptable.

Jeffrey Wright plays novelist Thelonious “Monk” Ellison. As the story begins, Monk faces a number of challenges, both personal and professional.

His affluent Boston-based family has a troubled history epitomized by his philandering dad’s gunshot suicide. Monk’s response has been to withdraw from the situation. He long ago moved to Los Angeles and continues to keep his two siblings, OB-GYN Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) and plastic surgeon Cliff (Sterling K. Brown), at a distance.

With his mom, Agnes (Leslie Uggams), facing a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, however, the clan will need to unite to provide for her care. So Monk tentatively attempts to improve relations with Lisa and Cliff.

At the same time, Monk’s career has stalled. His weighty books, which frequently draw on classical mythology, have been met with low sales and, as his agent Arthur (John Ortiz) informs him, his latest work is facing rejection on the grounds that it isn’t “Black” enough.

Competitor Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), by contrast, is reveling in the bestseller status of her exaggeratedly gritty portrayal of African American life, “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.” Predictably, Monk is disgusted with this style of writing, which he sees as both caricaturing its subjects and pandering to the would-be woke sensibilities of guilt-wallowing White liberals.

As a practical joke, under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh (a play on the 1911 folk song “Stagger Lee”), Monk produces an outrageous parody of the genre, initially entitled “My Pafology.” But the joke turns out to be on him since publishers are all too anxious to snap the text up for a munificent price and Hollywood shows avid interest in the film rights.

The resulting windfall helps Monk finance his mother’s move to a comfortable nursing home. But the escalating charade in which he’s caught threatens, among other things, to derail his newfound romance with Coraline (Erika Alexander), a neighbor he met by chance while staying at his family’s beach house.

Uproariously funny moments alternate with realistic and sometimes insightful ones in this deft dramedy. Yet viewers committed to scriptural morality will encounter some uncomfortable interludes as well as an entire subplot demanding careful discernment.

Lisa, we’re shown, works at a Planned Parenthood-style “clinic” and her dialogue with Monk includes a passing affirmation of legal abortion. On a more sustained level, Jefferson’s script comes larded with off-color talk. In part that’s because, in an effort to sabotage his own success, Monk insists on changing his book’s title from “My Pafology” to, quite simply, the F-word.

Divorced dad Cliff, moreover, has decided that he’s gay. Though his casual encounters with other men, like his fondness for cocaine, are treated as a symptom of his reckless, out-of-control lifestyle, a later exchange with Monk is more in line with Tinseltown orthodoxy on this topic.

Most grown viewers will have the necessary judgment to sort the gems from the ashes in this mix. But many may wish to spare themselves the effort, the clear aesthetic assets of “American Fiction” notwithstanding.

The film contains fleeting gory violence, mature themes, including homosexuality, drug use, implied premarital sexual activity, a couple of same-sex kisses, brief sexual humor, several instances each of profanity and milder swearing, pervasive rough language and frequent crude and crass expressions. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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