I respect "American Fiction," the film debut of writer director Cord Jefferson, more than I enjoyed watching it. It's certainly an ambitious film, but one that bit off a little more than it could chew. On the one hand, it's a broad satire of the publishing industry, specifically the frustrations of being an African-American writer trying to get ahead in an industry when the public only seems to want a very stereotypical, very narrow kind of African-American story. At the same time, it's a very specific story of an African-American family going through hard times, the kind that goes against the grain of so many other portrayals of African-Americans in fiction. The two sides of the film don't always coexist very well.
Thelonious Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), known as "Monk," is a gifted writer who has just been fired from his teaching job for being too challenging in the classroom, and can't seem to get anything new published. After his mother (Leslie Uggams) is diagnosed with Alzheimers and his sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) can no longer look after her, Monk has to move back to Boston to try and help out. His brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) isn't quite out of the picture, but after recently being outed as gay and having blown up his life, he's very unstable. After seeing the success of other authors like Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) in writing exaggerated black struggle stories, Monk writes a fake memoir called "My Pafology" as a joke, under a pseudonym, and insists that his doubtful editor Arthur (John Ortiz) shop it around. Nobody is prepared when "My Pafology" turns into a monster hit.
One of the reasons that I'm hesitant to embrace "American Fiction" is that I put "The 40 Year Old Version," about a black playwright confronting many of these same issues, on my list of the best films of 2020, and I think that film did a lot better with a lot less. I absolutely enjoyed the excellent performances by Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, and Tracee Ellis Ross, but those performances are in service of a film that I was never quite on the same wavelength with. I thought that the satire was handled well, even if it was very on the nose. I preferred the more personal stories playing out with Monk and the various members of his family. I even got invested in his romance with a friendly neighbor, Coraline (Erika Alexander).
However, when it comes to making one cohesive movie, the pieces don't all fit. The scenes with the Ellison family feel sluggish next to the scenes of Monk struggling to keep up the pretense that he's a wanted felon named Stagg R. Lee. The white editors and marketers who are so bullish about the book come off as cartoonish next to the much more grounded characters in Monk's personal circle. I appreciate that there's plenty of nuance, and Monk's attitudes are constantly being questioned and challenged by intelligent, well-intentioned people. Monk gets to vent and lay out his grievances, but he also has to answer for his own hubris and his own short-sightedness. There are no easy answers and no elegant way to resolve any of the issues being raised.
And I guess that's why the film chooses the out-of-nowhere, metatextual, fourth-wall breaking ending that it does (which oddly gives it something in common with recent Netflix animated film "Orion and the Dark.") It doesn't feel like a cop out, but more like a very imperfect compromise ending, which left me dissatisfied. The more emotional, personal storyline didn't feel resolved, and the satire felt like it had been undercut. I don't know if picking one or the other would have helped, but the best thing I can say about "American Fiction" is that it's very, very close to being a much better film. Its actually kind of infuriating how close, because Cord Jefferson has some great insights and great instincts on display.
I don't know if "American Fiction" deserved a Best Picture nomination, but of all the films about the African American experience that came out in 2023, this is one of the more original ones. Like "Barbie," which I hold in roughly equal esteem, "American Fiction" strikes me as a very honest, earnest attempt to grapple with big issues through a different lens. It may not have totally succeeded, but it certainly has plenty to say. I hope the right people are paying attention.
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