★★★½
By Vanessa Huang
Cord Jefferson’s acerbic feature debut sees Jeffrey Wright playing Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a Black writer facing little commercial success and dealing with a bad spell of writer’s block. This all changes when he pens precisely the type of novel he would consider pandering drivel – one full of drugs, poverty, and crime. And thus follows a reversal of fortunes.
American Fiction aptly evinces the kind of hollow progressivism that seeks to assuage guilt by way of trauma porn – siloing marginalised communities into societally mandated stereotypes, all in the name of ‘diverse voices’ and ‘representation’. Art for art’s sake isn’t exactly true nowadays (was it ever?). And as media bigwigs, most sinisterly, practically salivate at the prospect of more stories of suffering, work that induces this kind of nauseating sympathy might be the only way in.
Yet the film offers no easy answers, equally turning its critical gaze towards Monk. This is a man so preoccupied with intellect and so desperate to join the ranks of the Great American Writers that he looks upon these ‘authentic’ stories with disdain, thinking if only they could aim higher and do better. But what does it mean to be good enough?
Beyond its probing questions, perhaps most audacious of all is Jefferson’s commitment to cultural critique from within, crafting a film that exists in somewhat meta-fictional dialogue with the subjects of its parody. For all the talk of simplification in commodification, the same criticism might be levelled at American Fiction – its quips and bits making for an exaggerated and heavy-handed tale. But that would be missing the point.
