American Fiction: review of a delightful American nightmare on Amazon

 AMERICAN SATIRE

In American Fiction, a black writer, nicknamed Monk, decides to revive his failing career to write a novel which represents African-American culture in completely caricatured ways, taking on the false identity of a gangster on the run. Problem is, the satirical work, written as a provocative joke, met with devastating success among the public, particularly the white intelligentsia.

No doubt, this feature film presents itself as an acidic and committed satire, which often veers towards the grotesque (and this is undoubtedly also why it had such an impact in the United States). He cheerfully plays on clichés taken to the extreme, particularly in the representation of white elites, which also gives his funniest dialogues.

That said, by enlarging the line so much (this lunar reading of Issa Rae's character in the introduction, the discussion with the editors on the change of title of the book), American Fiction immediately becomes much more relevant when it gives itself a little seriousness. The result is some well-felt outbursts, such as during the discussion between Monk and author Sintara Golden.

GANGSTA'S PARADISE

In the treatment of its social subject, the feature film nevertheless favors a scathing humor, with a direction which sometimes visually assumes the surrealism of the scenario. The whole thing is relatively sober, but Cord Jefferson, whose first film as a director, allows himself some amusing deviations, for example by having his clichéd gangster characters appear in Monk's house.

The strong point of the film remains its strong writing, in which we find the primary talent of Jefferson, a renowned screenwriter who notably won an Emmy for the brilliant HBO series Watchmen. There is therefore something quite enjoyable in seeing Monk, a character who bears the label of "stuck", sink into a completely absurd nightmare, at odds with his daily life.

This surrealist dimension, however, remains at the sketch stage, far from the delirium of a Sorry To Bother You for example, in favor of what is undoubtedly the strength and weakness of the feature film: a strong and sincere drama, but which anchors it in a paradoxical classicism.