As a bribe to get her to update her passport, I took my daughter to lunch, and then we bused to the Spectrum 8 Theatre in Albany to see the new film American Fiction on a snowy Tuesday afternoon (January 16) in a near-empty room.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that Theolonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a prickly black novelist frustrated that his writing is not “Black enough” to sell many books. At a book conference, he sees how the new book by Sintara (Issa Rae) receives thunderous applause for its portrayal of the Black experience.
Under a pseudonym, Monk writes what he considers an outlandish “Black” book of his own and has to deal with the consequences of the book’s release.
But that’s not all the film was. It touches on family dynamics, specifically Monk and his siblings Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) and Cliff (Sterling K. Brown), including how to take care of their aging mother (Leslie Uggams). Who was the favorite child? How do those characteristics get passed down, particularly as one relates to others, such as Monk’s potential girlfriend, Coraline (Erika Alexander)? That throughline alone was worth the price of admission.
I laughed aloud several times and often nodded my head in an “oh, yeah” agreement.
They’re missing the point.
As is my wont, I like to look at negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Sometimes, it speaks to how I was feeling. Occasionally, it points out something I might have missed. In this case, I think most of the 7% who didn’t recommend the film missed the point.
“A buzzy film adaptation of Percival Everett’s Erasure, a novel about publishing’s racial politics, misreads what is truly ailing the book industry.” I don’t think it was explicitly supposed to be specifically about the book industry, but rather about how even well-meaning white people can get the issue of race so wrong. My daughter said that one character in particular reminded her of of someone we both knew, and I totally see it.
“By softening the blow with its cuddly human side, American Fiction feels too self-satisfied by half.” The film needed the human side, especially Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor), the Ellisons’ long-time housekeeper, to help contextualize the portrayals.
“American Fiction is an intriguing conundrum. It starts as a sizzling, hilarious satire that manages to sling pointed arrows at most of its targets. However, by trying to become too many things, it ends up sanding the edges off its sharpness.” I LIKED the “too many things” because these people are complex. One critic suggested Monk was “flat,” but he seemed pretty authentic to me.
The ending is a bit murky, but I don’t much care. American Fiction may be my favorite 2023 film, but I must ruminate on it more.
