American Fiction (2023)

Jack, Amy, and I loved this dramedy about an erudite and prickly Black novelist/professor who, frustrated with racism in the publishing world, picks a corny pen name, writes an absurd book entirely made up of Black stereotypes, and is horrified that it is widely praised. We laughed, we cringed, and I even shed a tear or two at some family and interpersonal drama. 

Jeffrey Wright is perfectly cast as Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, smart and angry. In fact, every actor is fantastic, including Tracee Ellis Ross as his hilarious sister, Sterling K. Brown as their brother, Leslie Uggams as their mother, John Ortiz as Monk's agent, Issa Rae as another writer, and Erika Alexander as a neighbor.

Cord Jefferson makes his directing debut and feature screenwriting debut, based on Percival Everett's 2001 novel Erasure. The movie strays from typical A-Z narrative from time to time.

All aspects of the movie are on many short lists for Oscars this year (29 wins and 104 other nominations so far), including its soundtrack by Laura Karpman, with help from Patrice Rushen on piano and Elena Pinderhughes singing one track. I'm streaming it now on Apple Music. Here's a list of other songs played during the movie.

Wright was last blogged for The Public, Ross for The High Note, Brown for Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, Uggams for Deadpool 2, Ortiz for Nostalgia, Rae for Barbie, and Karpman for The Beguiled. Jefferson has written or co-written 196 episodes of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (no stranger to satirizing Black stereotypes and racism), twelve of The Good Place, and more. Rushen is a Grammy-nominated jazz pianist and vocalist.

This is a best seller for Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, averaging 92 and 97%, respectively. As a voting member of the Film Independent Spirit Awards, I have permission to stream the nominees, so we watched it December 30. As far as I know, that's the only way to stream it for now but it's expected to be available in a month or two. I'm posting about it today (before movies I watched between November and now) because those of you who do go to bricks and mortar movie theatres can see it right now. Definitely do see it!