American Fiction belongs to a genre of films that I always appreciate, the portrait of the frustrated artist.  This genre includes artists who work in various mediums (painters, sculpture, etc.), musicians, actors and of course writers.  American Fiction is about a writer named Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), and the reasons why he is frustrated with his career are made evident within the opening minutes of the movie.  Monk’s latest book has been rejected nine times, so he’s forced to teach to earn a living.  He hates the job because he doesn’t suffer fools lightly.  Monk believes he’s the smartest person in whatever room he walks into, and even though he’s usually right, nobody wants to have it rubbed in their faces.  He brandishes his intelligence like a sidearm and is willing to duel with anyone who dares disagree with him about anything.  When a white student says she’s offended by the n-word, he bluntly tells her that if he can get over it, so can she.  When an antagonistic colleague critiques his output and lack of publishing success, Monk retorts that quality takes time and that being purchased by travelers when they buy their neck pillows and Cheese-Its is not an achievement.  Monk’s insistence of his intellectual superiority over others dates back to his childhood, when his siblings gave him the nickname “Detective Dictionary”.

While Monk would certainly prefer to support himself through his writing instead of teaching,  publishers are convinced that his book won’t sell.  Like every other frustrated artist, Monk believes that he should be more successful than he is.  However, instead of listening to what publishers are telling him (nobody wants to read a modern version of a play written in Ancient Greece), he refuses to believe that he’s the problem.  He’s not alone in that regard; every author believes that what they write is brilliant and that it’s not his fault if others don’t “get it”.  (I’m personally baffled that I average only a handful of readers on a good day.  I blame my agent.)

As fate would have it, Monk meets his nemesis at a book conference in Boston.  She’s a fellow writer named Santara (Issa Rae) who, unlike him, commands a room full of readers who hang on her every word.  When she reads a passage from latest best-selling novel, Monk is dumbfounded.  He considers her reliance on poverty-stricken characters who speak in stereotypical urban slang to be appalling and patronizing.  Based on the racial makeup of the   audience, Monk correctly discerns that Santara obviously wrote her book to appeal to a white audience who, as his agent Arthur (John Ortiz) puts it, seek to be absolved of their sins in regards to people of color.

Since his university colleagues have insisted Monk take a mandatory vacation, he visits his family while in town.  His sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) is looking after their mother Agness (Leslie Uggams), who has signs of dementia.  Lisa isn’t happy that Monk and their brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) left town, effectively turning her into her mother’s caregiver by default.  She’s stressed over having to manage her patients and finding a facility for her mother to live.  When she dies unexpectedly, Monk is required to engage with his family again after avoiding them for many years.

As any artist will tell you, inspiration can come under the most unlikely circumstances.  The evening after learning that his mother has Alzheimers, Monk stews after reading a fawning review of Santara’s book.  He’s had enough and writes a story that parodies her formula.  It’s filled with all of the tropes of urban literature that he believes are demeaning:  broken families, deadbeat dads, drug use, swearing and slang, all unified by a pervasive hopelessness.  He sends it to Arthur and tells him to send it to publishers for consideration, effectively calling their bluff.  The following morning, Monk is shocked when Arthur says he already has an offer of $750,000.  Monk has no choice but to accept the money, because his mother’s care is incredibly expensive.  The publisher is so interested in publishing his book, they even agree to Monk’s new title, an expletive.  (It rhymes with “Duck”.)  Soon Monk is forced to give interviews promoting his book, which nags at his conscience.  Then he receives an even more lucrative offer for a movie deal.  The book Monk fully intended as a joke has inexplicably brought him the success he’s always wanted, just not the way he wanted it.  This presents a quandary for Monk, a man of integrity being forced to play a game he despises.

As someone who writes (recreationally), I sympathized with Monk (Jeffrey Wright), the protagonist of American Fiction.  Like most artists, Monk believes that what he writes is good and is frustrated when readers instead embrace the inferior work of his peers.  When he writes the literary equivalent of a middle finger in protest, he’s rewarded to such a degree that leaves him stunned.  That his worst book makes him rich isn’t merely ironic, it’s exasperating.  Of course, he vastly underestimated the nakedly commercial instincts of publishers and the bad taste of readers in general.  On this level alone, the movie deserves a place alongside two other movies about similarly frustrated writers: Adaptation and Barton Fink.

American Fiction is also a sharp satire on how the publishing industry panders to their (white) customers intent on alleviating their (white) guilt.  This leads to a surprisingly passionate discussion about the commercial aspect of urban-flavored literature.  From Monk’s perspective, these books tend to reinforce negative racial stereotypes among white readers.  However, a writer must sell books in order to be successful.  Is it wrong for African American writers to play the game and give readers what they want?

If the movie only focused on purely intellectual concerns, that would have been more than enough for me to recommend it.  American Fiction is also a poignant study of a man who left his family behind in pursuit of artistic glory, only to realize too late how consequential that decision was.  Geniuses may be lonely, as Monk’s mother tells him, but that path was always his choice, and not a requirement.

While other actors certainly could have portrayed Monk, Jeffrey Wright was born for this part.   Throughout his career, Wright has made his mark playing characters with his distinct blend of gravitas, intelligence and intensity.  He does the same with Monk here, but also gives him a shy, wounded quality that reminded me of one of his best performances, Bernard in HBO’s Westworld.  It’s a career-capping performance and worthy of the accolades it has received.  The movie is also fortunate to have Sterling K. Brown as Cliff, Monk’s polar opposite in every way.  Watching them interact, as brothers and lifelong antagonists, is acting at its finest.  American Fiction is a funny, incisive and touching movie that happens to be about the most solitary of professions, writers.  When it’s not satirizing the modern-day publishing landscape and white guilt, the movie delivers a sobering portrait of the lonely lives of geniuses. Highly Recommended.

Analysis

As you may have guessed, American Fiction is catnip for a movie reviewer like myself.  The way it brandishes its intelligence like a sidearm definitely struck a chord in me.  I admired how confidently it wields satire and parody and fully expects the audience to follow along.  In addition to its thematic concerns, I felt a real kinship with Monk and his one-man crusade against the defilers of literature.  What’s not to love about a writer who longs to be adored by society, but whose contempt for them borders on misanthropy?  Finally, I was moved by its underlying message of how striving for artistic immortality is a hollow exercise in the absence of love and family.

While I easily could have spent more time than I do below exploring the movie’s many facets, I limited myself to those that resonated the strongest within me.  I know, I know, this is the rare instance when I’ve been concerned about the length of a review.  Be that as it may, I forced  myself to say goodbye to my good friend Monk so that I can proceed with what’s next on the list.

Parody and satire

American Fiction is a scathing commentary on the business of publishing.  It directs its ire at literature written by African Americans with the intent of providing a window into the real urban experience.  The movie argues that these works are inherently harmful for two reasons.  First, they feed into and perpetuate stereotypes held by their white readers.  Second, they severely constrain the topics that African American writers can feasibly get published.  Those authors who prefer to write about topics that are not–in the words of the movie’s protagonist, “black trauma porn”, are viewed as being unprofitable and subsequently not published.  Those authors who do cater to the interest of white audiences, however, receive handsome deals for their work and are hailed for their authenticity.  The movie deftly employs both parody and satire in making its case against “urban literature”, turning what could have been an esoteric argument into one that is both incisive and hilarious.

The theme of the American Fiction reminded me of both Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation and the Coen Brothers Barton Fink.  In Adaptation, Charlie and his fictional twin Donald represent the tension between art and commerce.  Charlie is hired to adapt a nonfiction article written for the New Yorker into a screenplay.  His twin brother Donald is a Hollywood wannabe who just wants to sell a screenplay for money.  While Charlie struggles with the artistic demands of the assignment, Donald picks his brain for ideas for his own ridiculous screenplay.  In the end, when Charlie is unable to finish his screenplay, Donald comes to his rescue.  The ending Donald comes up with is incredibly crass, transforming what was a sensitive and quirky story of loss and cynicism into something blatantly titillating.  The irony of the situation is that Donald, heavily influenced by Hollywood movies, has unconsciously satirized the blockbuster movies he admires.

American Fiction has a similar premise in that Monk is a respected author who finds it increasingly difficult to get his work published.  Frustrated and angry that publishers passed on his latest manuscript, he writes a parody of current bestselling author Sintara’s book.  While his agent is horrified by the piece, he sends it out to keep Monk happy.  To their surprise, a publisher loves it and offers to pay him $750,000 for the publishing rights.  The point of the satire is how the publishing industry, driven to appeal to white audiences who feel guilty over the current state of racial relations, fall over themselves to publish something they can’t tell is a joke.  The movie skewers how white people, in the interest of virtue signaling, willingly overlook their own taste and judgment so that they can be seen as supporting representation and other voices.  Finally, the movie takes the satire to its logical conclusion, with a studio paying Monk four million dollars for what he readily describes as a simplistic and meaningless story.

Acceptable Pandering

American Fiction also delves into the notion of pandering, and whether it is acceptable to produce something with the sole intention of making money.  One the one side is Sintara, whose book has made her a rich and wealthy author.  On the other side is Monk, who wrote a book that parodies Sintara’s but has also made him an overnight sensation.  In the movie’s judgment, both authors are guilty of pandering to a white audience.  The question being posited by the movie is whether either of them can claim the moral high ground.

It isn’t until Monk and Sintara become members of the committee that will decide the recipient of the New England Book Association’s annual Literary Award that he and the source of his ridicule actually meet.  To his surprise, she dislikes “Fuck” as much as he does.  When Monk and Sintara speak privately, he asks her plainly why she things that his “Fuck” is different from her own successful novel.  Like everyone else, Sintara doesn’t pick up on the irony that he wrote the novel as a parody of her own work.  Something about Monk’s book touches a nerve, though, and she settles on describing it as “soulless”.  She perceives it as an exercise in style over substance and defends her work because she based it on interviews with actual people.  However, Monk views her authenticity as disingenuous because she didn’t come from a poor background.  Sintara deflects his argument by saying that there is nothing wrong with providing what publishers want even if the end result is pandering.  

Like Donald in Adaptation, Sintara is fully aware of the commercial side of the business.  She knows that as an author, the best way to make money is to write what the public will like (and buy).  Sintara’s book, regardless of its underlying legitimacy and artistry, was a purely commercial endeavor.  In contrast, Monk’s book was written as a joke but made him rich.  He had no noble intentions behind what he wrote, but he’s still a gifted writer who can turn genre conventions into a compelling narrative.  The question the movie is asking the audience to weigh in on is a nuanced one.  Given that both novels were equally commercially successful despite their obvious pandering, is one better than the other?  Does the underlying intent of the work make one more respectable than the one?  And if the audience never knows what the underlying intent was, are both works actually equivalent?

Tragically brilliant

At the outset of the movie, Monk learns that another publisher has passed on his latest book.  By his count this is the ninth rejection he’s received.  Because he can’t support himself through his writing, he has no choice but to continue teaching, a job that requires him to do what he hates the most–interact with people.  As an instructor, he’s forced to deal with overly sensitive students and colleagues he does not respect.  They, in turn, find him to be insufferable, which has led the faculty to strongly encourage him to take two weeks off.  The idea being that both parties need a break from each other before the situation gets worse than it already is.

The obvious solution to the frustrating situation Monk finds himself in would be to write about subjects that have broader appeal.  Publishers would gladly pay him for a story that would appeal to the average reader.  Monk, however, only wants to focus on subjects that interest him.  He chafes at the idea of writing about the African American experience, a topic that certainly would appeal to a wider audience than his latest book, a modern retelling of Aeschlyus’ The Persians.  The conundrum for Monk is simple: people don’t want to read what he wants to write about, and he doesn’t want to write about what people want to read.  At this stage in his life, Monk has become tragically brilliant–an intelligent and gifted person who people avoid.

Unlike his father, brother and sister, Monk chose a career that didn’t require him to interact with others.  The movie suggests that Monk chose the solitary life of a writer because of his relationship with his father.  His sister Lisa mentions that their father expressed only two emotions, boredom and rage.  As a writer, he could mentally wall himself off from the drama surrounding his family and focus on his own thoughts.  When he relocated to LA, he put as much physical distance between himself and his family as possible.  While he may have justified the move as necessary for his career and his personal well-being, his writing became increasingly esoteric and unpopular, thereby requiring him to teach to earn a living.

Ironically, Monk writes the most successful book of his career when he’s home with his family.  Isolated no longer, the feelings that he’s long suppressed come to the surface when he decides to write a parody of Santara’s book.  He writes My Pafology quickly, almost like a stream of consciousness exercise.  Although he intended the story to be a joke, it functions as an actual pathology by uncovering the root of Monk’s problems.  Through Van Go Jenkins and Willy the Wonker, he reveals that he not only hated his father, but that he hates how much he is like his father.  Instead of confronting his anger and self-loathing, Monk drifted away, as Cliff puts it.  He immersed himself in his work and wrote stories as far removed from his troubled family life as possible.  The further he turned away from reality, the more unreliable Monk’s work became.  It is only when he addresses his own interiority that he is finally able to write something that is relatable and popular.

A cinematic lifetime with Jeffery Wright

Back in 1996, I saw Jeffrey Wright for the first time in the title role of Basquiat.  My wife and I saw the movie when we were dating.  I must have made the right choice for the movie we saw that afternoon, because my wife and I have been together ever since.  I’ve always looked forward to seeing Wright in a movie since then.  Whether it’s as James Bond’s CIA friend, Commissioner Gordon, an android in Westword or now this movie, he always makes the movie special.  Somehow, despite an acting career that spans forty years and countless performances in movies, Wright has never been nominated for an Academy Award before his role as Monk in this movie.  Thankfully, that ridiculous oversight on behalf of Academy voters has finally been remedied.