American Fiction (2023)

[Cremildo]

[Cremildo]

AMERICAN FICTION | Official Trailer - YouTube

[Foggy]

Looks like a blast.

[Hedrox]

This looks hilarious, but I hope the satire has more bite than what they have in the trailer. Don't get me wrong, I'd watch an entire show of Jeffrey Wright reacting annoyed at white people saying dumb and offensive stuff, but the movie needs to be a little more nuanced if it wants to make a meaningful statement.

[HipsterTrash]

Looks fantastic.

[Cremildo]

[Rottweiler30]

How many films have been made with the word 'American' in the title.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Rottweiler30

How many films have been made with the word 'American' in the title.

American Psycho
American History X
American Honey
American Mary
American Dreams
American Beauty
American Gigolo
American Pie
American Splendor
American Graffiti
American Hustle
American Sniper
American Gangster
American Ultra
American Ninja
An American Werewolf in London

[Member-866753]

American Made
American Underdog
American Assassin
American Gothic
American Carnage
American Pastoral
American Me
American Animals
American Outlaws
American Movie
American Heist
The American President
American Flyers
The American
Wet Hot American Summer

[Rottweiler30]

An American in Paris

[tehthomas]

Didn't realize this was an adaption of 'Erasure' by Percival Everett, one of my favorite authors!

[Adam_ME]

I saw this tonight. I thought it was terrific. But that trailer is VERY misleading. It absolutely does satirize the entertainment industry and in particular the completely out of touch white people who run it, but what you see in that encompasses maybe 25% of the film. It's mostly a drama about Monk(Jeffrey Wright) and his relationships with his brother, mother, and girlfriend.

Which is the brilliance of the movie. It pokes fun at how publishers, filmmakers, and record producers all go for lowest common denominator stereotypical material while it tells a far more serious story about a family dealing with tragedy.

[Cremildo]

AMERICAN FICTION | Trailer 2 - YouTube

[rsp_clark]

An MGM-ORION picture...
So straight to Amazon Prime Video here in Brazil, just like "Bottoms"?

[format916]

I was wondering why this is getting positive reviews when the concept is at least over 20 years old, especially wearing du-rags....

[RevolverOcelScott]

Did this film's wide release get delayed?

I can't find it playing anywhere near me and it was supposed to wide release on the 22nd?

[Danespina]

I missed a line in the movie and was hoping someone could fill me in.

Monk says: "I dont feel like a genius".
And his mother replies “That's because…” and then I missed the end of the line.

[Jennifer Lawrence Fan]

Originally Posted by RevolverOcelScott

Did this film's wide release get delayed?

I can't find it playing anywhere near me and it was supposed to wide release on the 22nd?

I'm guessing around awards season it'll get a bigger push. The same thing seems to be happening with Poor Things. In "Wide release" but in less than 1,000 theaters.

[Danespina]

^ In the Toronto area it's only been playing in one theatre. The Varsity.

Starting January 4th it looks like a few other theatres will follow, such as The Queensway

[The Great Owl]

Five stars

Jeffrey Wright, who played CIA operative Felix Leiter in the recent James Bond 007 films and Lt. James Gordon in The Batman, is an underrated actor whose time has come. After a friend and I went to a noon matinee this weekend to see the 2023 feature, American Fiction, we agreed that we were hugely pleased to see Wright shine as the lead in a multilayered comedic drama instead of simply being pigeonholed into a cool-headed hero role in some action movie in the vein of The Equalizer.

American Fiction, directed by Cord Jefferson, is a tremendous film that soars above and beyond the simple humorous premise hinted at by its trailers that focus on the plight of Wright's Thelonious 'Monk' Ellison, a misanthropic literary professor who, after publishing esoteric, yet unpopular, novels centered on Greek mythology, jokingly writes an intentionally over-the-top work that panders to racial tropes, only to watch with dismay as the book skyrockets to the bestseller list amidst the public's fascination with his pseudonym identity as the hardened felon, “Stagg R. Leigh.” The central core of this tale lies in the relationship dynamics between Monk and his family after he returns to his Boston hometown, with the end result being a wonderfully lived-in screen story that gives all of its characters room to breathe.

Sterling K. Brown (This is Us) is a revelation as Monk's estranged brother, so much so that I would love to see him nominated for Best Supporting Actor awards. Leslie Uggams (Roots) has a heartwarming part as Monk's mother, while Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish) commands attention as his sister. John Ortiz has a hilarious turn as Monk's agent. Erika Alexander (Living Single) lends considerable heft to the proceedings as a neighbor love interest. Be on the lookout for Keith David (The Thing) in a riotous cameo during a daydream writing sequence.

I have mixed feelings about the events in the final five minutes of American Fiction, but am at a loss to think of a better way that the movie could have wrapped up as an amusingly satirical, yet deeply poignant, observation about the confining nature of stereotypes. The final shot, with Wright's Monk nodding knowingly to another character, does close the curtain in a perfect way. The story may be old, but it goes on.