Movie Review: American Fiction (2023)
The film features Jeffrey Wright (Basquiat, Ali, Syriana, a variety of Wes Anderson films) as a professor who is also a frustrated novelist. Why is he frustrated? Because his books aren't popular. Why are they not popular? Specifically, so says his agent, his books are not "black enough." And so, a few plot twists and turns aside, he sets out to write a book that is black enough. Laughs, irony, and various levels of social criticism ensue.
Where American Fiction succeeds is by taking a humorous slant on the way that institutions like academia and the publishing industry handle any issues of race with such a gentle touch that it almost fetishes race and, in the process, continues to position people of color as "other."
It is difficult to put a lighthearted spin on issues related to race and class, but sometimes it's necessary. And in that vein, American Fiction is a lighthearted and welcome film that also, in the process, ends up being a heartwarming (yes, heartwarming) story about family, middle-age, careers, and about being genuine to oneself regardless of whichever way society, the publishing industry, or even your own family is pushing you.
If I had a complaint, it's that the film is almost too lighthearted, not pushing the ultimate conflict to enough of a resolution. Furthermore, there were a few opportunities for the director (Cord Jefferson) to sort of "go bigger," namely with the side plot about the female writer (played by Issa Diop) who essentially triggers the main character to write his "blacker" novel by writing her own, which has succeeded. There were a couple squandered opportunities like this that could have pushed the film in a funnier, smarter direction. As is, it ends up feeling a little bit like a consequence-less yet well-paced story about witty, nicely dressed, urbane people whose lives are otherwise pretty tame, reminiscent of Woody Allen at his most mundane.
I don't know that I'll ever find the need to re-watch this film and I'd like to fast forward to see if, in five years, anyone is still talking about this film or still remembers it. I have a sense the answer is "no." However, right now, in 2024 the film feels necessary and like a welcome breath of fresh air in an epoch and a culture in which we could all use a bit of fresh air and a laugh at our own collective expense.
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