#11: American Fiction

Release Date: December 15th, 2023

Format: Theater (Cinemark at The Pike Outlets in Long Beach, CA)

Written by: Cord Jefferson

Directed by: Cord Jefferson

3.5 Stars

American Fiction is easy to like. Or at least it was for me. Jeffrey Wright’s character, Monk, is a writer and professor who has grown contemptuous of his own craft and resentful of the reading public for misappropriating his fiction as “African American Studies.” He wants to be a writer who is black, not a black writer. 

That’s not to say he denies his existence as a black American. He just refuses to write about the black experience as it is commonly portrayed in popular fiction and cinema; it’s “shallow” as Monk says. 

But when he becomes despondent at the success of another black writer’s bestselling novel, he decides to satirically write a “black” book and rub the public’s and critics’ faces in an exaggerated version of the black prose they adore. What Monk doesn’t expect is for the satire to fly over their heads and become an award-winning bestseller.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation while watching American Fiction, especially the scene where the character Charlie attends a writing workshop. Much like Monk, Charlie refuses to pander to readers, to the point where he asks Brian Cox’s character running the workshop what his advice is for a writer who wants to write a story that resembles real life, where not much happens and the characters don’t change and things just come to an end. Hilariously this draws an outraged reaction from Cox’s character, who is flabbergasted that Charlie thinks nothing happens in life, that there is no love or loss or murder or birth or sacrifice everyday in the world.

Monk and the author of the bestselling book that he despises hit on a similar impasse when discussing their own respective writing. Monk thinks her fiction is pandering and shallow; she thinks his is self-indulgent, and doesn’t do any better of a job of capturing black experience than her writing that he criticizes. 

What makes the movie so likable for me is that these conversations are not sanctimonious or preachy. They’re usually funny, and this is a genuinely funny movie. 

I had never heard of Cord Jefferson, the writer and director, but he’s on my radar now. This is a great medium budget movie made for adults that Hollywood used to crank out all the time, but is now almost an extinct species. Not much stood out in regards to his direction, good or bad, but the writing was excellent, his actors’ performances were incredible, and he can do comedy, which is a lot harder than drama. I hope he does some more stuff.