*This article contains spoilers for American Fiction*
Cord Jefferson knows his audience. The writer-director of American Fiction acknowledges them and calls them out at the end of the film’s second act. Stagg R. Leigh, the pen name of author Theolonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) proposes renaming his new satirical novel from ‘My Pafology’ to simply ‘Fuck’. His agent Arthur (John Ortiz) is shocked, but both men are even more perturbed when their wealthy white publishers agree to the change, citing it as more ‘black’, and therefore more authentic. ‘Fuck’ becomes a bestseller, and the book cover is everywhere in the second half of this confident directorial debut, and for good reasons. In its commentary on a great many phenomena, American Fiction’s conclusion is best summarised in that one word. Fuck, indeed.
With five Academy Award nominations amongst other awards tucked under its belt, the audience for American Fiction has been spread wide, ensuring that the chin-strokers of a liberal arthouse bent have shuffled it up their list of must-sees before Oppenheimer wins everything anyway. Still, American Fiction deserves consideration. On first viewing, one is struck by its ambition. It has to be ambitious; the irony of satire is that it has to transcend its own message, in order for that message to reach a wider audience. This is the realisation Monk comes to early on in American Fiction. Throughout the film, Monk walks a fine line between his success as a writer and academic, and having to cater to the needs of his family, his agent, his publishers, and ultimately himself. Imagine a version of America Ferrera’s speech from Barbie, but coded for race rather than gender, and extrapolated to feature length. As American Fiction underlines, African Americans have to walk a tightrope to transcend most expectations. Fuck.
Take the very first scene; a (white) student leaves Monk’s university lecture because he has put the N-word on the whiteboard for his class on historical literature of the American South. Despite his own lack of offence taken, Monk is placed on administrative leave for the offence caused to the student. Shortly after, while being informed by Arthur that his latest novel has been rejected by a publisher for not being “black enough”, Monk’s efforts to hail a cab are ignored. Leaving aside the blatant racist undertones of the phrase ‘black enough’, it is shocking to see how the agency of Monk’s race is turned on its head. In this adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel ‘Erasure’, Jefferson sprinkles numerous examples of underhand racism throughout; the (notably white) university board can only see the offence caused, not the offender. His refusal to be offended by a slur referring to his race is ignored, but so too is his attempt to publish a literary work that doesn’t feature Ebonics or black stereotypes. Monk is not ‘black enough’ to dictate what is racist, but is ‘too black’ to be picked up by publishers of fiction for white audiences, or by a cab. He can’t win. Fuck.
Yet, that racial strife that just one problem with which Monk must contend. Several films’ worth of drama comes his way in American Fiction‘s opening act. His mother (Leslie Uggams) is showing signs of mental degradation, his hardworking sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) struggles to keep her familial and professional lives together, and his brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) is partying too hard to cope with his divorce and realization of his homosexuality. Fuuuucccckkkkkkkk. All these characters are successful doctors, led lives that conformed to the American Dream (the ultimate American Fiction) to a tee, and still ended up sick, stressed and alone. Monk is criticised throughout the film for his distance from those around him, as if this was going to save him from a similar fate. But therein lies the point of American Fiction. We are all hopelessly enmeshed in whatever groups we belong to, and it’s up to us to do with that what we will. Monk belongs to his family, his race, and his new relationship with his neighbour Coraline (Erika Alexander). Until now, he’s chosen to be distant from his family, but their drawing closer together following tragedy opens him up to other experiences.
Alas, this bevy of experiences exposes American Fiction’s weaknesses. The family dramas sit a little uneasily beside the satirical bent of the book storyline. In trying to tell all these stories, Jefferson is simply trying too hard. American Fiction is focused from scene to scene, but it feels scattered across the whole film. The book has nothing to do with Monk’s family, and the two strands compete for air. This would be a bigger problem if the film wasn’t so sharply written, and peppered with moments of poignancy. Jefferson’s direction isn’t strong enough to marry his narrative threads together, but his writing is confident enough in both its message and form to switch between comedy and tragedy with ease. This is epitomised in Brown’s supporting turn. He earns all his plaudits by being hilarious (Informing his brother he’s “taken a lover”) and dramatically compelling (His response to his Alzheimer-ridden mother’s use of a gay slur) in equal measure.
Anchoring all this is Wright’s barely-stifled bemusement as Monk. His expressions and reactions invite some of the biggest laughs, even when trying to cope with the various twists and turns that crop up in his story. The inciting incident of American Fiction sees Monk watch fellow author Sinatra Golden (Issa Rae) read from her acclaimed new novel, one that deals in the stereotypes and Ebonics that Monk assiduously avoids. His crestfallen face is giggle-inducing, but also readily conveys his repulsion at Black experience being reduced to the usual clichés of gang violence and absent fathers all over again. It’s a deceptively layered performance, having to keep the audience laughing while venting Monk’s exasperations constantly, and Wright manages the balance beautifully. His choice to engage with such reflexive material goes back to his first major role, in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat; when an interviewer asks Wright’s Basquiat if he’s a painter or a Black painter, he responds, “Are you a writer, or a White writer?” Wright and Jefferson are on the same page, sporting a healthy disdain for artistic and racial pigeonholes, while having to work within those same constraints. Any time Monk has to put on a tough act to pretend to be Stagg R. Leigh, it feels ridiculous, but not beyond the realm of possibility. He has to fake it until he makes it.
Monk’s hangdog expression and sharp tongue, coupled with his balding bonce and penchant for polo shirts, bring to mind some unlikely inspirations. The first one that came to this writer’s mind was Miles, as played by Wright’s fellow Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti in Alexander Payne’s Sideways. Miles is another academically-minded writer dealing with rejection by publishers, a blossoming romance with a gorgeous woman framed in curls, and a fraternal bond (with his best friend, Thomas Haden Church’s Jack) that frustrates as much as it enriches. Laura Karpman’s score cements the comparison, its use of flute and drums recalling Rolfe Kent’s score for Payne’s film. Despite its incendiary material, American Fiction largely eschews the signature bombastic filmmaking of someone like Spike Lee (The spoof novel ‘Da Pafology’ could be a sly critique of Lee’s use of similar Ebonics in titles like Da 5 Bloods or Da Sweet Blood of Jesus) for a cool and calm style, unhurried and polished. This might contribute to the film’s other main narrative problem, namely an undefined sense of time. Weeks and months pass with no indication of how far we’ve jumped ahead, leaving events in a vacuum as the viewer tries to catch up. Still, it’s far from fatal; the film is too angry and intelligent to let a structural issue trip it up. The characters and the commentary see it through.
American Fiction works as satire because it underlines the points it wants to make, while never being so arrogant as to suggest it has all the answers. When Monk does confront his various tormentors, their answers can seem both pat and relatable. Most any decision any character faces is driven by their humanity rather than by their ideology; they have bills to pay before they wage any wars. We’re bound by those pigeonholes of identity and family, and in its own messy but sharp way, American Fiction acknowledges our need to both test those boundaries, and work within them. Fuck.
The Film Cynic 