The movie American Fiction starts off with a bang of a scene that makes you think, "Oh. This is going to be amazing." From beginning to end, there are a number of sharp, brilliant, stingingly funny scenes. But they're interspersed between what feels like another movie - a bittersweet yet heartwarming family drama. Two movies with the same characters running along a parallel story arc that occasionally intersect. On more than one occasion I found myself asking, wait, which movie am I watching?
First, there is the movie as described in the IMDB synopsis: "Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist who's fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name to write his own outlandish "Black" book--that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain."
This movie is awesome. But it only shows up on occasion as what sometimes feels like a sub-plot of the other movie.
The other movie also stars Jeffrey Wright as Monk, same frustrated, emotionally disconnected, lost character. He takes a highly-encouraged leave of absence from his university teaching job and goes and reconnects with his emotionally damaged and broken yet still loving family. The great cast includes Tracee Ellis Ross as his accomplished, primary-bearer-of-responsibility sister; Sterling K. Brown as his middle-aged, recently-heterosexually-divorced, now out-gay-and-on-the-prowl brother; and, best of all, the legendary Leslie Uggams as his rapidly-on-the-decline-but-won't-acknowledge-it mother. Monk gradually, reluctantly takes more and more responsibility to care for his mother and be an active brother, accomplishing some middle age growing up in the process. It's a very nice, warm, if not particularly inspiring movie. It serves as the narrative background for the first movie.
The first movie is also a kind of journey of maturity, responsibility and self-discovery, along with being a biting and very funny satire. It's way more interesting and fun. Unfortunately, we don't get to spend a lot of time there. It's too bad, because each time it reappeared I thought, now THIS is the movie that I want to see. The effect is a feeling of story-drive interruptus. The first movie brings a level of building tension that wets your appetite with anticipation (OMG, what's going to happen next? I can't look but want to look!). And then it drops that tension and momentum when we move back to what is actually the main story line with him and his family. I kept feeling like, no wait, don't go back to the family movie, stay with this one!
The good thing is that it comes back around to the first movie at the end with a climax scene that is sharp, cynical and hilarious.
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