American Fiction review – satisfyingly prickly satire on race and hypocrisy in the literary world | Drama films
“I simply assume we must always actually be listening to Black voices proper now,” says a white jury member in the course of the debate for a prestigious literary prize, in a pivotal scene in Wire Jefferson’s American Fiction. The irony is that she and the opposite white jurors have simply brushed apart the opinions of the 2 Black writers on the jury; the unstated caveat is that the gatekeepers of American literature are joyful to tune into Black voices, however solely so long as they’re saying the best factor. It’s a toe-curling depiction of tone-deaf sanctimony that’s nearly too bluntly on the nostril. It’s to the credit score of Jefferson, who makes his function directing debut with this savvy, jazzy, Oscar-nominated satire, and to a never-better Jeffrey Wright as irascible author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, that the movie feels as deft and light-weight on its ft because it does, regardless of often unsubtle moments equivalent to this one and a divisive, archly meta last 10 minutes.
Tailored by Jefferson from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, American Fiction is an erudite, reasonably extra elegant tackle the identical themes as these explored in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled. There, a disillusioned TV author satirically pitches a minstrel present, just for it to grow to be a smash hit; right here, author and tutorial Thelonious, enraged by the rejections of his complicated, finely wrought literary choices, dashes off a bit of hoodsploitation trash fiction as an mental prank. However is the joke on the publishers, who provide Thelonious – or reasonably his fugitive ex-con alter ego – a $750,000 advance for the guide? Or is it on Thelonious, who finds himself in a monetary gap and thus unable to show down the cash?
The story works on two ranges, first as a prickly critique of the pressures going through Black creatives. However equally satisfying is its depiction of the abrasive, difficult dynamics in a high-achieving household. Tracee Ellis Ross, within the image all too briefly, is terrific as Thelonious’s physician sister; her scenes reverse Wright have a bracingly sharp-edged coronary heart and humour.
