American Fiction

The best movie I've watched in 2024 thus far is "American Fiction," without a doubt! This film is such a clever, complex, and intriguing comedy. Never have I found it so enjoyable to hear profanity in a non-threatening setting! "American Fiction" will be regarded as a masterpiece in American film as the years pass.

The comedy was fantastic, and I love that it makes fun of white people who try to speak for black people. However, there's a lot of filler in the movie that taints the overall experience. If the movie is a comedy, we don't need these dumb side stories about different family members dying, we just want the social commentary, which is what the movie is supposed to be about!

'American Fiction' is an entertaining satire about what the white elite expects from black art. It's an interesting exploration of how the black experience is reduced to misery and exploitation. However, the most attractive part of the story is overshadowed by an ordinary and somewhat boring family drama. Jeffrey Wright is formidable as the protagonist, but none of the other characters are as fascinating. The premise had potential, but it lacked edge.

"American Fiction" is a very cynical satire masquerading as importance. A lot of the talking points and examinations this film moves through and presents as revelatory feels very old hat and kinda retrograde. It feels like the conversations on this subject matter although worthy of being brought up but because it's based on a novel that's twenty years old really show it's firmly stuck in the past and preaches ideas that are uselessly old underlines the point. It's putting a lot of things out that have already been established in the cultural conversation. This movie also has many story problems starting with how the character Dr. Lisa Ellison Monk's sister (Traci Ellis Ross) is written off way too soon and the fact that Jeffrey Wright's character Thelonious "Monk" Ellison is attempting to avoid being labeled as a black writer but in order to do that he writes a black stereotypical book under a pseudonym and pretends to be an escaped convict. The idea that white Americans or any publishers would choose to help and do business with a black criminal wanted for murder, this is a pretty unconvincing meaningless conceit. The dynamic with Monk and his brother Cliff Ellison played by Sterling K. Brown and his mother Agnes played by Leslie Uggams is fine but there are so much basic dialogue with eye rolling cliches with the her wondering off and the neighbors helping trying to find her. Sterling K. Brown is very good is this loose mode but it's weird that it's not really discussed how unexplored and underdeveloped he is as **** character and it's very reductive. This movie leans a lot on audience reactions and gets away with a lot of things that would otherwise be an issue because of its diverse theme. Cord Jefferson has the potential **** director but the filmmaking on display isn't anything revelatory at all, it's pretty standard and mostly a lot of put the camera there and let the screenplay do the work. Also even when the screenplay isn't working that well it doesn't really amount to a full enjoyable cinematic package. The film kinda mocks well meaning white liberals which was funny in the moment but I couldn't help but feel like it was entertaining the same audience at the same time in terms of laughing at all the obvious things white people say and not laughing about it with their friends and Cord Jefferson as a writer really doesn't balance the tones all that well. I'm going to be like Jeffrey Wright's character and put my english major cap on for just one minute. The thing about this novel from 2001 that the film is based on, the Percival Everett novel "Erasure" was famous because it was a peak post-modern novel and the problem here that was over twenty years ago and the culture has shifted so much where we are now post post modern and none of the things this film is concerned are none of the things we care about anymore, we've already addressed a lot of these things and we've got many other problems to deal with. This movie is just a satire of a bygone time, and the material feels so dated, it's very confused, and it's not speaking to any of us now.

Looking forward to seeing this as the reviews were glowing and I'd heard it was very clever and bravely counter-culture. Sadly it's a very average, low budget film that ironically succeeds because it's a black film about a lacklustre product succeeding because it's a black product. Well, there you go - 3 stars