American Fiction has brilliant intent and a strong relevant subject matter, but it falls short heavily in delivering any knock-out blows or lasting impact due to being heavily stretched out by unnecessary character narratives, and at times it seems as though it completely forgets what kind of message/story it’s intending to get across.

Written and Directed by Cord Jefferson, American Fiction is an American comedy film that focuses heavily on satirising modern sociological experiences in regards to the rapid Western commercialisation of Afro-American culture in modern America.

It stars everybody’s favorite Michelin-star-food-loving-Android Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a writer and lecturer of academic success who we can tell from his introductory that he has no problem with discussing racial matters brutally head-on with his students, he finds himself angered by the popularity of supposed ‘black culture’ books (which encompass’ ALL of the various racial stereotypes that have been seen and heard time and time again) but also the silencing of discussing the topic at all seriously. Our hero then decides to create a pseudonym to replicate these works as a joke in the hopes a publisher might ridiculously take it on – and they do. Pretty good so far, seems exactly as said on the tin and there seems like a plethora of ideas and angels this narrative could be taken for all sorts of satire.

From here we lose ourselves. We slowly become more and more involved with Monk’s siblings and parents, their health, etc.

Why?

For the life of me I can’t work it out – do all Hollywood films just feel the need that ‘more is more’ and that by shoving an extra 30-60minutes of runtime just so you can bring up and then immediately drop seemingly implicative plot points… Why?

Everything in regards to whether that film wanted to leave a lasting impression/message tells me it didn’t. I understand that these things would have been in the original materia, but does the thought that written and visual mediums have never blended well ever crossed their minds? The core idea and narrative is right there in both the trailers and the introductory 20 minutes. After that, I can’t tell.

Strong performances all round and a great core narrative saves this from being a complete waste of time, it’s just such a shame that the satire had to be diluted down with so much unnecessary character development and narrative direction.

3/5

If you’ve seen the film and have any thoughts you’d like to share with me please do get in touch, I would love to hear your thoughts on it as a whole.