Today is Saturday, December 23, 2023.     This entry is going to be brief since I’ve just returned from Manhattan after seeing a new film with Elliot called American Fiction starring that underrated actor Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown in a satire of the “woke” culture surrounding the Black experience.     I enjoyed the film more than Elliot did.    Elliot even sallied forth to the Angelika Theater to see another film, All of Us Strangers, a gay film, after having dinner at Emilio’s Ballato, an Italian restaurant located at 55 East Houston Street.   I went to my Mercer Street bookstore and then took the subway home.   

The film was written and directed by Cord Jefferson and based on Erasure, the 2001 novel by Percival Everett, a thought-provoking author who wrote books on race, including I am Not Sidney Poitier and The Trees.    It stars Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison – a seemingly talented writer whose books are not selling.   Monk used to be a hot commodity; however, the publishing industry, unfortunately, has moved on from eloquent, well-written novels by Black writers.  

On top of career issues, Monk is wrapped up with family drama back in Boston as well.   All of his siblings, one sister and one brother played by Sterling K. Brown, are struggling financially, even though both are doctors.    His sister, Dr. Lisa Ellison (Tracee Ellis Ross), is facing financial issues after a bitter divorce.  Monk’s brother, Dr. Clifford Ellison, is a successful plastic surgeon and is confronted with the same sort of financial issues in combination with a coke addiction, after his wife caught him in bed with another man and took half his practice.   To make matters worse, their mother (Leslie Uggums) is now in the throes of early onset dementia.    In Monk’s family, there is the outward signs of success in a white world, but that appears to be only on the surface. 

The thrust of the plot emerges when Monk comes across the reading of a new book by a successful Black author, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), who has the most popular book out, We Lives in Da Ghetto, even though he feels the book is rife with the most outrageous ghetto stereotypes.   Therefore, Monk decides to write a book encapsulating the stereotypical Black experience using a pseudonym and is horrified to learn that the book not only is picked up by a leading publisher but is also being pitched to the movies as a possible film project.   

For me, the film showcases the charms of this actor who has appeared in many films in supporting roles in the past, but has never taken on a principal star turn – until now.     He is brilliant in the role, his onscreen charisma and sharp intelligence perfect for the part.    The film slows down a bit, though, in portraying the domestic tension inherent in Monk’s family, as the truth emerges that their deceased father was a bit of a philanderer and that Monk was not always around to take care of Mom (it was Lisa’s responsibility, and she informs him of this during a tension-filled conversation when he returns home from California and learns many things he didn’t know because he was gone – it’s a little like every family, don’t you think?)

The opening scene bristles with this society’s overemphasis on “wokeness” in Monk’s other role as a professor of literature in the tense exchange between him and a white student over the n-word in a Flannery O’Conner story.   Monk tells the offended student, “If I got over it, you can too.”  At that point, she storms out of the classroom and Monk is encouraged to take some time off.  So he heads back to his hometown of Boston and gets into scrapes with his two siblings. 

The book catches fire and before long, Monk is facing an uncertain future as a purportedly Black fugitive on the lam who writes the newest bestseller and is even being considered for a prestigious writing award.   It would appear that no one got the joke!    Except for Monk and his agent.

Again, I enjoyed the film more than Elliot.    He thought the family drama in the movie diluted the satirical thrust of the plot a bit.  I thought it gave the film a multidimensional feel.  

Anyway, if you’re in the market to see a funny and thought-provoking film, go see this one. 

I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday since I will be away tomorrow. 

Stay safe and be well.