REVIEW: American Fiction (Film)
Written by Elijah Davis
American Fiction: Cord Jefferson’s triumphant debut subverts its satirical window-dressing to engage in thoughtful familial drama.
It is rare to find a movie led by a Black protagonist that isn’t first and foremost about their Blackness. This is, of course, because race is inextricably linked to all facets of life for Black people in America, a concept that American Fiction’s protagonist, Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), would love to be rid of at any and all cost to his professional career. So while American Fiction’s marketing team would love to have you believe you’re walking into an incessant satire of racial politics in the literature industry, that genre framing only contains half of the picture.
The piece itself is a touching meditation on intricate familial dynamics, and the effect aging and mental health have on those intimate relationships.
There is a leading idea in today's media culture that only filmic elements which drive the plot forward are worthy of an audience's attention. Characters, sequences and aesthetic ideas that don’t actively do this are treated as superfluous rather than expressive artistic decisions. This devout adherence to plot above all else is antithetical to film as art, repressing it’s ability to craft an emotional journey in service of getting to the final destination as quickly as possible. American Fiction counteracts this trend wonderfully by crafting a world whose idiosyncrasies and deviations reflect that of our own.
An example of this idea at play is the film’s foregrounding of ideas and relationships that most films (read also: film executives) would immediately deem uninteresting. I refer primarily to the blossoming romance between Lorraine and Maynard (Myra Lucretia Taylor and Raymond Anthony Thomas), a touch that does little to drive the plot but provides these often disregarded character types a remarkable inner life, and the film an added sense of depth and realism. These supporting characters and ideas work wonderfully in tandem with the film’s crown jewel, the performance of Jeffrey Wright. Wright, a theater veteran turned character actor, proves here his unequivocal ability to succeed as a leading man. The gradual alleviation of his resting scowl is a cathartic joy to behold as seasoned writer/rookie director Cord Jefferson’s script provides him ample room to express the surprising complexity to Monk’s disagreeable nature. Wright takes full advantage of this opportunity, crafting a character that radiates in both the comedic and dramatic moments of the picture.
In a world where Hollywood earnestly slaps the words “timely” and “important” on twenty films a year, American Fiction earns this distinction without strain through Jefferson’s thoughtful attention to detail regarding the films representations and perspectives. The post screening Q&A I attended confirmed Jefferson’s intellect and empathy, essential qualities for Black filmmakers whose work must actively work against a century of negative media representations.
