323: American Fiction

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[00:00:30] 32 let's get to another 2024 best picture nominee which is American fiction and it is directed by core Jefferson stars Jeffrey Wright Tracy Ellis Ross John Ortiz

[00:00:46] he's Sterling K Brown Keith David East Array Adam Brody Leslie Uggams and a few others and the synopsis is a novelist who's fed up with the establishment profiting from black entertainment uses a pin name to write a book that propels him into the heart of the hypocrisy and madness he claims to disdain.

[00:01:06] So this one I knew nothing about going in just watched it in the last week for the first time. I thought the story was gonna be completely different I heard that there was a thelonious monk character and so I was thinking he was more relating to music that's how little I knew about it and so when I'm pretty blind.

[00:01:25] But with that being said I was very pleasantly surprised while it wouldn't necessarily be top three of the nominees or best of the year for me I thought it was incredibly entertaining refreshing the writing for whatever reason felt so creative and float perfectly the direction was strong Jeffrey Wright who I've always liked is amazing in it and Sterling K Brown fantastic character actor I love.

[00:01:55] And I love him and everything he is excellent and everybody's good again.

[00:02:00] And for anyone who is unfamiliar the overall premise besides just the synopsis is he is this black novelist who writes he's very complex rich poignant stories but he can't really sell much and he's always hating on these sort of mainstream commercial writers who are indulging in black stereotypes but getting best seller.

[00:02:25] Sales and all that sort of thing so as a joke he writes is very very crude low lying sort of story in the end of the world just in all those really bad stereotypes and cliches about black people and then the publisher loves it.

[00:02:46] And then his agent is trying to get him to go along with it and they give him a pseudonym and basically he presents himself as a black convict or a former convict and then he's put on these different boards for literature awards and he's having to hide this identity the secret identity because everyone around him is reading this new book that he wrote that he thinks is trash but it's doing really really well.

[00:03:11] So it was a very creative and I know it's based off a book which I would be curious to read but it is very not super deep but I thought that the commentary there the satire there was on point for sure never really missed a mark in my opinion and you could call it heavy handed but it sometimes that's important and you can need to just be heavy handed and you don't always need it to be crazy subtle either so.

[00:03:37] It was a very very refreshing enjoyable experience and one that more people should watch because it is very true unfortunately in terms of what gets the attention commercially what doesn't and then who you are as a writer or an artist and people coming to certain conclusions about who you are your background your education all of that and how that feeds back into your presence and identity.

[00:04:07] I think it's a very good idea as a celebrity and artist so all that really worked for me a great lead performance for Jeffrey right because he's usually a supporting character minor character and I'm really glad that he got the spotlight for this one because he is top notch.

[00:04:25] Besides that is array love her actually saw her at a Sundance press conference in I think 2017 or 2018 so I actually got to see her speak way back when and I've really liked her ever since and she's excellent as the sort of mainstream writer in the story who's battling Jeffrey writes his ideas in terms of what's art and what's meaningful and how to be a proper quote unquote black writer and all that sort of thing.

[00:04:56] And also everything with his mother Jeffrey writes his mother and her getting Alzheimer's and him having to do with that and then also the brother played by Sterling K brown being fairly distant because of the very bad upbringing that they had in him battling with those emotions and also the discussion one that really got me was.

[00:05:16] He Sterling K brown that is he is gay and he's talking about to Jeffrey right how upset he is that his father who he did not love or get along with never knew that and he never knew the real him.

[00:05:31] And so that kind of gave him despite the father being against that and moments like that were very, very grounded and very real and very poignant and thoughtful in terms of because I've known plenty people like that in my life and still do now in terms of that parent child relationship and especially if it's a strained one so it's very, very well thought out and I am very interested to see what he does next.

[00:05:59] So that is a heavy four out of five.