American Fiction (2023)

 Some Spoilers

In 'American Fiction' Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a university professor and author of respected but not commercialy successful fiction. Having trouble getting his latest serious work published and frustrated by the success of a stereotype ladden novel called 'We's Lives in the Ghetto', Monk quickly dashes off his own clichéd work of black fiction and submits it to publishers under a pseudonym as a kind of "F You". To his surprise the intentional trash he wrote really takes off, a publishing phenomenon that has Hollywood after the movie rights. This in short is the movies satirical set up and what is emphasized in the advertising. However...

One of the themes of the film is that the publishing industry, movie makers and audiences eschew serious writing about the black experience in America, in favor of derivative, stereotypical crap. 'American Fiction' presents its self as a satirical critique of that situation, it was what I was expecting and what I went to see. But like a Trojan Horse 'American Fiction' the satire has within it the kind of serious work of black fiction that is considered non commercial and generally ignored, but is in fact of high quality. 

It is around a third to 40% into the movie before Monk writes his work of rage literature, at first called 'My Pafology' but later something more vulgar. Before that Monk has a conflict with a student leading to some forced time off, during which he travels from California to Boston where he grew up in a well to do family. There he has to deal with the sudden death of his  sister (Tracee Ellis Ross), his mother's (Leslie Uggams) worsening dementia and a perspective romance with a lawyer neighbor (Erika Alexander). Much of this narrative has more in common with the complicated well to do families of a John Updike or Michael Cunningham novel, then with "stereotypical black fiction." This is a work of "American Fiction" and to me the family drama was even more engaging then the satire, which its self is extremely on point. 

I found 'American Fiction' to be a real surprise, first rate all around and probably the most original movie of last year. A frank film, a character study, that has a timelessness to it while also being extremely now. I loved the ending. ****