American Fiction – 4.75 stars

The previews suggest an unrelenting, biting send-up of the idiocy of the so-called black experience as represented in the arts. On that front, the film delivers, though with a stiletto rather than a cleaver.  But while the social satire of the film is paramount in its marketing, in presentation, the picture is a sweet and moving story about a family whipsawed by tragedy. It is not lost on the viewer that the dramedy is refreshingly devoid of the stereotypes punctured by the picture. Writer-director Cord Jefferson practices what he preaches, delivering on the traditional at the expense of a caricature he effectively obliterates.

We meet Monk (Jeffrey Wright), a college professor and author in California, as he is confronted by an entitled white undergrad who objects to his having written the title of a Flannery O’Connell short story on the blackboard. Monk explains that as a black man, if he can get over the word that shall not be said, surely, so can she. Our Precious, however, stands in for every vapid girlchild who haunts the modern university, likely cheering for Hamas though they would throw her and her heightened sensibilities off the nearest roof. So she complains. Monk is summarily placed on sabbatical and forced to reunite with his upper middle class family back in Massachusetts and, as with all “going home” movies, things get messy. 

Monk is also going through a professional slump, his books fewer and farther between, and not very popular. While attending a book fair, he notices the crowds at another black writer’s (Issa Rae) event, and when she reads a passage from her novel, a tale of domestic hardship told in the patois of the street (“Yo, Sharonda! Girl, you be pregnant again?”), Monk winces. The crowd, however, swoons and applauds the bravery, grit and authenticity.

Furious, Monk writes his own ghetto tale, My Pafology, as a joke and a rebuke.  He also creates a pseudonym, and soon, the big publishing houses and Hollywood come calling. He is stunned yet seduced, and in aid of his scam, must adopt the mien of the inner city thug, a character so “real” that he cannot make public appearances because, of course, he is wanted by the law.  He negotiates his double life in the midst of rapprochement with his family, with varying levels of success.

I laughed out loud in the theater at least a dozen times, and was thoroughly amused throughout. No one is unscathed, and nothing feels cheap or gratuitous. Most jibes are nuanced, and when Rae and Monk finally go at it, there is no dawning, no lesson. Just an insoluble conundrum that thankfully is not laid at the feet of whitey or oppression or the usual suspects that are part of the grievance mill Jefferson has in his crosshairs. 

The script crackles. Not only in Monk’s hilarious attempts at playing street, but in the familial slings and arrows between Monk and his siblings and the interplay between Monk and his colleagues. When Monk is solicited by a tony literature award contest to be one of the judges, the courter explains that they needed to add some diversity to the panel.  Monk responds, “I’m honored you’d choose me out of all the black writers you could go to for fear of being called racist” to which he receives the oblivious reply, “Yeah. You’re very welcome.”

If it has any flaws, it may be a bit top-heavy on family melodrama over the social satire. But it’s one of best movies of the year.