American Fiction directed by Cord Jefferson and based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Jeffery Wright plays Thelonious "Monk" Ellison. He is a writer of literature and currently a professor teaching a course on literature of the American South.. At the time we meet Monk he hasn't had a novel published in three years. He has also just offended a white student because he wrote a racial slur on the board. She informs him that this is wrong. Monk retorts that he pretty sure it is right and that it contains to "G"s. Suffice to say in a hearing he is placed on leave.
Thomas Wolfe wrote that, "You can't go home again" In Monk's case he does just that. He travels to Boston to attend a book festival as well as reconnect with family because he has some time on his hands. At the book festival he encounters a sparse crowd for a panel that he is on. Someone tells him of another Black writer by the name of Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) who currently has a novel that is the talk of the festival and literary world. It is a "Black" novel entitled, "We's Live In Da Ghetto" A book she claims she was compelled to write because voices like hers where non-existent in the world of publishing which is dominated by white men from New York City going through a divorce. Is Sintara placating to a white audience or does her novel have artistic merit?
After the festival he reconnects with his sister. At a lunch she has a heart attack and passes away in the hospital. His coke-snorting, divorced brother Clifford (Sterling K. Brown) is in town for the funeral. His life is also in shambles. The Ellison brother's mom Agnes (Leslie Uggams) is also not doing well. She sits catatonic in the bathroom as the bathtub overflows to the floor below. Monk learns that Agnes is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease.
Sitting back at the family beach house they will be selling soon Monk ponders what is the "black" novel and begins writing a book he entitles My Pafaology. In one of my favorite scenes of the movie, as Monk is typing out the story two of the characters Willy the Wonker (Keith David) and Van Go (Okieriete Onaodowan) appear in front of Monk and act out the dialogue he is typing. As he does this Willy and Van Go interject their thoughts on the matter. They and ask what they are going to say next or disagree with what he is writing. This is one of the greatest depictions of the writing process in cinema. Monk decides to go with a pen name for this novel. He types the name Stagg R. Leigh.
As the film progresses we see Monk deal with his family issues, begin dating as well as transverse the publishing world as the on the run fugitive Stagg R. Leigh tuned best-selling black author. The film handles the tones of the family drama as well as the biting satire of black writers extremely well. Sintara and Monk were bound to cross paths and they indeed do as the two black judges on a literary award jury with three white writers.
American Fiction is a film that will be watched and discussed from beyond it's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. How do you end one of these reviews? I don't know...Fuck!
No comments:
Post a Comment