American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, December 15, 2023) Movie • Page 2

This is fucking dumb as hell haha. I am really not enjoying myself. Does it pull something out of its ass in the last act or is what I am seeing the actual movie?

 

It is horrendous.

 

We turned it off. I will finish at some point I guess.

 

I enjoyed most of this! Maybe because I’m an author myself, so I had fun with it. Jeffrey Wright and Issa Rae were great. Def not best picture worthy, but a fun watch.

 

This felt super clunky and disjointed - I understand and agree with pretty much all of the criticisms in here. Both the mother and novel storylines seemed to run out of steam fairly quick and sorta just traded turns treading water until we got to the wedding conversation with Cliff, and with Sintara over lunch.

On the same token, it had some solid laughs and I really appreciate it for the themes explored re: identity, even if it mostly stays in shallow water. Pretty much the definition of a 2.5 star movie lol. Not great, but watchable

 

lol if you're hating this right now, you are going to fucking hate the Clue ass way they end this.

 

Personally I found this to be pretty charming . I thought Wright was good. I agree on the clunkieness. Not horrible, but I had an ok time with it.

 

Shocking tbh

 

nah, that was the frontrunner

 

yeah for the last month or so

 

I did not like this movie at all. The worst part is I’m not sure what the movie is trying to say, and I don’t think the movie knows either. It kind of ping pongs around a bunch of different ideas without exploring or committing to a single one. It’s not complicated in a good way….its messy in a bad way. I actually don’t think the black family drama in the middle of the film isnt terrible per se, but using it as a “see, black people are just like white people” feels off when using it as a way to mock stories of poor black experience in America. The movie ends up being a collection of very shallow and dated observations instead of a biting critique, ok with becoming the very thing it claims to hate: a movie for white liberals to like, shower with awards and feel absolved.

 

I don't think the film is claiming to hate that kind of movie as much as the character is and I think the film pushes back against him for that. I think the point of the film is that the kinds of stories he finds offensive are still truthful stories for a lot of people and that authenticity is the difference between something artful and schlock.

I also saw this post on Twitter and it's interesting thinking about that first scene in context of the rest of the film. He essentially ends up taking the same stance as the white girl. He never even reads Sintara's book, he just assumes it's trash because he's offended by the subject matter and the way it was written.

 

Within ten minutes of the movie it was painfully obvious that he was going to meet her and that she would end up making him feel like the ignorant one.

 

I also don't think Monk's personal life was there to show that black people are just like white people or to mock stories of poor black experience in America, it just shows how far removed he is from that experience. His family are all wealthy and educated, writers and doctors. He has a completely different set of problems and priorities.

 

I understand that we are also supposed to be critical of Monk….but it’s weird when the movie kind of ends up being a smooth and easy satire, very middlebrow, not very thorny. I wish it committed more deeply to what it wanted to say and was more uncomfortable.

 

I am surprised how many people let it get away with the gay stereotypes. Monk's brother and his party friends are straight out a Nineties movie.

 

I agree with pretty much everything said so far, positive and critical. It has a lot of potential and also a lot of flaws. Disjointed and overambitious in that it juggles several storylines, but it has a lot of heart. It’s not even close to a perfect story/movie, not would I even call it a great one, but I’m glad it was made and I’m glad it got this much attention, if that makes sense.

 

Someone on Twitter pointed out that Cord won the same award that Precious won in 2010, a film based on the same novel that the novel American Fiction is based on was explicitly satirizing.

 

Precious was so bad. Just straight poverty porn.

 

Yeah, Sapphire who wrote the novel Precious is based on is who Issa Rae's character in American Fiction is a parody of.

 

I enjoyed this. I think my only major complaint is that it never feels like it fully dives into the family narrative or the author narrative