(I know I’ve seen this clever phrase somewhere, so my apologies to whomever I stole it from.)
Review and Comments by Ken Burke
Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone, with couples having a special time to share their love but even the non-coupled should know you’re (hopefully) loved too by relatives/friends/pets or whatever may bring joy to your life. For all, here's a song by Gordon Lightfoot about "the wherefore and the why."
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffery Wright)—a clever naming of the main character by original novelist Percival Everett (Erasure, 2001), retained by screenwriter/director Jefferson—is a literature professor in L.A., struggling with his own novels receiving critical praise but poor sales, his latest rejected by publishers as not “Black enough”; when his agent, Arthur (John Ortiz), says the industry is only interested in examples of “Black fiction, Monk retorts he’s Black, his book is fiction, what else do they want? Obviously, not what he considers worthwhile-writing. He’s faced with complaints from colleagues, too, about hassling students who don’t agree with his pedagogy, so they suggest he take a leave of absence, attend a literary conference in his Boston hometown, then spend time with members of his family. He’s not too keen on the “leave” aspect of this trip but accepts the offer, goes to the conference where he finds his session is sparsely-attended while the crowd packs in for Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), who’s also an intellectual but has written a best-seller, We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, packed with Black stereotypes but adored by this White literary crowd, which astonishes and angers Monk. More bad news comes rapidly as Monk’s mother, Agnes (Leslie Uggams), shows some obvious signs of Alzheimer’s, but when he meets his divorced-doctor-sister, Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), for drinks to discuss this she suddenly dies from a fatal heart attack.
Monk’s estranged brother, Cliff (Sterling K. Brown)—also divorced after his wife caught him with a man; plus, he’s a druggie—comes home for Lisa’s funeral, discusses with Monk the problems Cliff faced with their father about his gay tendencies (Dad shocked Mom too, committing suicide by gunshot with her devastated when finding his body—he may have had affairs as well). Monk investigates selling at least one of the family homes to pay for the huge costs of assisted-living for Agnes ($6,000 a month), a fate she has no interest in, though she lightens up considerably when Cliff visits her. Monk meets Coraline (Erika Alexander), a lawyer neighbor, with some mutual interests emerging. What’s really bothering Monk, though, is Golden’s success so he creates an absurd novel, My Pafology, using the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh, supposedly an escaped convict with extreme ghetto cred (satire really picks up at this point), has it sent around to publishers as a joke, is shocked when one of them offers a $750,000 advance with confidence it'll be a best-seller, followed by meeting with movie producer Wiley (Adam Brody), willing to pay $4 million for the rights.
Monk takes on the necessary gangsta personality on the phone with the publisher people, in person with Wiley, all of them easily buying the full load of this fiction. Monk then tries to derail the whole venture by demanding the novel’s title be changed to Fuck; however, this backfires when they agree, so he accepts all of the manufactured identity (with only Arthur knowing the true story) in order to get the necessary funds for Mom’s housing. Then, a further complication arises when Monk is asked to join the 5-person judging panel for the New England Book Association’s Literary Award (Golden’s on the panel too), with the 3 White members intrigued by Fuck, which has become a cultural event, with the FBI now determined to find “Leigh” ‘s whereabouts. During a break of the judging panel’s work, Monk and Golden talk privately where they agree about the worthlessness of Fuck (intentionally published on Juneteenth for maximum impact), but she becomes defensive when he notes problems with her book, which she says is based on considerable research; then the other 3 return, vote to give the award to “Leigh” ‘s book, which horrifies Monk, not sure if he should reveal the truth or not.
Meanwhile, Cliff supposedly left town, angry at Mom for her homophobic remarks, but actually moved into the beach house with a couple of guys, then is invited, along with Monk, to the wedding of the long-time family housekeeper, Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor), even as Monk is on the outs with Coraline after an argument over her enjoying Fuck; Cliff encourages Monk to open up about his secret identity, which he seems about to do at the awards ceremony that suddenly cuts to black (no pun intended) as if the film’s finished. ⇒However, we come back again to find Monk in conversation with Wiley, the implication being what we’ve been watching is a visualization of Monk’s script about his experiences, but Wiley wants a different ending. Monk suggests a version where he runs away from the ceremony to apologize to Coraline; Wiley says no, too romcom-ish, so the next idea (intended as a stereotypical throwaway) is that FBI agents show up at the ceremony and assume Monk is “Leigh” (not as a fake identity, but as a real escaped convict) so they shoot him dead. Monk’s shocked that Wiley accepts this (but, after all, he’s in the process of shooting Plantation Annihilation), which puts Monk's film into production as Monk and Cliff drive away from the studio.⇐
So What? Although you’ll often find this film referred to a satire with strong implications of being a comedy throughout, it’s really more of a successful hybrid of solid satirical elements and serious family drama, maybe a sort of a blend of Bamboozled (Spike Lee, 2000) and Long Day’s Journey into Night (Sidney Lumet, 1962) without being as fully invested in the biting social (anti-racist) commentary of the former nor the devastating interpersonal clashes of the latter, so you get a bit of both allowing you to laugh at misplaced White-fawning over anything perceived as “authentically” Black, then effectively feeling the struggle this trying-to-be-sincere-man has in being genuinely-connected to those few who are closest to him, even as he hides aspects of himself which leads to his breakup with Coraline. The strong family interactions do pull us away from the satire about “woke” White liberals (which, I must admit, include me a lot of the time until I see where excesses of such ideologies can further the antagonism of our current social divides instead of helping reach the original goals of bringing a divided, violence-prone-society closer together with an acceptance of common visions) and their blind, guilt-driven-embrace of anything seeming to be “representative” of the cultures of so-called “Others,” African-Americans in this case. But, for me, the blend of satire and drama works well as it helps us better understand the background forces shaping Monk’s complicated life (a nice example is when he’s in a bookstore to see if they carry any of this works; they do, but to his dismay they’re shelved in the African-American Studies section just because of his identity, so he grabs a double armful to angrily relocate them to the more-general-area of Fiction because he doesn’t see himself as having written anything truly about Black identity into his books).
The awards community has embraced this film as it's won the People’s Choice Award at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival; it’s also included among the Top 10 Films of the Year by the American Film Institute Awards, along with many other wins, nominations, and pending possibilities from all across the U.S.A. (go here for a current, updated tally) with some of the most-notable being an Outstanding Directing – First-Time Feature Film nom from the Directors Guild of America; the Screen Actors Guild noms for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (their Best Picture), Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for Wright, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Brown; the Producers Guild nom for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures; Oscar noms for Best Picture, Actor (Wright), Supporting Actor (Brown), Adapted Screenplay (Jefferson), Original Score (Laura Karpman). Soon we’ll see how it plays out in these contests and so many others, with my high encouragement for you to see it before any of these awards finalists are announced. In truth, even if it doesn’t win much more than it already has, it’s still well worth your time for seeking it out.
Bottom Line Final Comments: American Fiction came to the domestic (U.S.-Canada) market on December 15, 2023 (still in 1,462 theaters, so you could probably find it somewhat nearby if you wanted to see it on the big screen), having taken in a quite modest $17.3 million so far ($17.8 million worldwide, international presence is exceedingly minimal), so I guess this content hasn’t been all that appealing to audiences (a real shame as it richly deserves to be seen) when compared to such fare as Wonka (Paul King, 2023) which has already piled up $205.1 million domestically, $587.8 million worldwide, although I doubt I’ll ever come in contact with it. The CCAL joins me (so wise of them) in recommending American Fiction, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 94%, the Metacritic average score at 81% (quite high for them, as only 3 that both they and I have reviewed so far this year come into the 80s range). So, if you’re COVID-adverse like me, you can easily turn to streaming where you’ll find it available for $19.99 at Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, etc., though you must note that price is for purchase, not rental; I certainly don’t object to having it in my Roku-access-library for a future revisit, but that just might be a consideration for you.
Another consideration, of a positive nature is it features a largely all-Black cast, a situation you don’t get many options for in mainstream cinema (a recent [somewhat lesser for me] example is the new version of The Color Purple [Blitz Bazawule, 2023; review in our February 1, 2024 posting], but you won’t find much else so celebrate what you can when you can), with content that comments on ghetto stories and romcom indulgences without veering into either. In addition to my enthusiastic recommendation, with hopes some of those nominated awards might laud this unique, engaging film, I’ll just close with my usual Musical Metaphor, even if this one seems a little silly given the more serious aspects of American Fiction, but I’m connecting it to the satire aspects as I give you The Beatles with “Paperback Writer” (a 1966 hit single which later made its way onto compilation albums such as Hey Jude [1970], 1962-1966 [1973], and 1 [2000]) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYvkICbTZIQ (an early form of music videos) with relevant lyrics such as “Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? […] And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer […] If you really like it, you can have the rights / It could make a million for you overnight,” so join this tongue-in-cheek-song with the insightful wit of a great film (sure to be among my Top 10 of 2023, a list I'll finalize soon after I see a couple more of the remaining contenders) and I think you’ll complete a winning combination.
SHORT TAKES
(Travis Kelce is now also a Super Bowl champ [for the third time, all with Kansas City];
Taylor Swift is “merely” a billionaire with a cluster of Grammy awards. Such cute kids!)
If you read this blog even on a casual basis you probably recognize immediately this posting’s a bit shorter than usual (don’t faint!) and it’s a day earlier than my usual Wednesday night/Thursday early morning marathon. That’s because some of my standard time commitments this week were (or are about to be) occupied with spending Valentine’s Day (and night) with my wonderful wife of 33 years, Nina Kindblad, and investing more hours than turned out to be necessary last Sunday watching Super Bowl LVIII where the Kansas City Chiefs beat my San Francisco 49ers (just a fan; I don’t own the team) 25-22 in overtime (worse yet, everyone in the world seems to have seen it). I’d like to find some excuse how K.C. managed to slip away with a victory, but given they’ve won this premiere football event 3 times in the last 5 years (twice against the 49ers), there seems to be no other choice but to congratulate the winners for yet another strong showing and leave you with one more song. I suppose I could play something from Taylor Swift’s catalogue, but given that I’m not familiar at all with her music (that ought to get me some responses, although I’m not so sure that any Swifties read this blog) I’ll just go with “Kansas City” from Wilbert Harrison (written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952, recorded by many from Little Richard to The Beatles, a hit for Harrison in 1959, which you might be able to get on this album if it becomes available) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah0gn5-M2cA (which cuts off just before the end so here’s another version with an introduction from long-ago-teen-influencer-Dick Clark), although I don’t need any “crazy little women” (I’ve already got one [just kidding, Sweetheart!]), but a bottle of “Kansas City wine” might be nice (I’m sure the Chiefs have had some by now; the 49ers need the harder stuff as they dream about “next year”).
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Just one option: (1) Complete list of Directors Guild of America 2024 awards (Christopher Nolan takes Theatrical Feature Film for Oppenheimer [review in our August 17, 2023 posting], Celine Song wins First-Time Theatrical Feature Film for her Past Lives [review in our August 31, 2023 posting]).
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