American Fiction has a lot to say. For his screenplay, Cord Jefferson won a slew of awards, including the Oscar and BAFTA honors. When I recently saw this film, I was impressed by the story details, the structuring of the plot, the development of several unique characters, and its dominant message about the stereotyping of blacks in America.
As the film opens, a literature professor and novelist, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, well-played by Jeffrey Wright, is teaching at a university in California. He is black and middle-aged. When he uses the “N” word in association with his lecture, a white student becomes offended. His approach is uncompromising, verging on rude, and the student walks out. She files a complaint and Monk winds up taking an involuntary break from teaching.
He heads east to the Boston area where his family lives. What an interesting bunch they turn out to be! They are a well-educated, formerly well-to-do family, but the siblings each has their own problems, and the elderly mother—played by Leslie Uggams, has entered into the early stages of dementia. (That’s becoming a common theme in movies and TV these days – the sandwich generation suffering with an elderly mother who shows signs of dementia).
The family drama alone would make American Fiction worth watching. Add to that an underlying theme of the stereotypical state of popular black literature and blacks in movies, and you have a fascinating, multilayered motion picture.
Monk is an angry man. Rightfully so. He enters a bookstore and cannot find his novels in the novels section. Because he is a black author, his books are displayed in the African American Studies section at the back of the store.
His books are not about black subjects, but the black-themed books that sell big, and the movies that make real money, are about street blacks. Stories about people of color who rob, who hurt others, and people of color who are put upon by neighborhood police, represent black culture today. Street blacks who speak a “gangsta” dialect of “mo fu” and sell illegal drugs are everywhere on the pages of books and on big and small screens.
Monk becomes outraged by this trend of street crime tales and “dumb melodramatic sob stories.”. From there, the plot of American Fiction revs up. This is a highly engaging film with characters who are strong and memorable.
It took me longer than it should have to see American Fiction, mainly due to the film’s title. American Fiction. It’s generic in nature. What audience would be drawn to such an all-purpose title? Decades ago, I worked for a film company that would gather all its employees together in a conference room to spend a few hours coming up with titles that befit a particular movie and at the same time would engage a prospective audience. It’s important! Even more forgettable is the title of the book by Percival Everett on which this film is based. It’s called “Erasure.” Whatever its title is, this film is one of the more thought-provoking and well-produced movies of 2023. It’s available in theaters and for home viewing.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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