All Ill say is, dont sleep on itits a scorcher.
Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious Monk Ellison inAmerican Fiction.
Is thisreallywhat the world wants from him then, he wonders, yet another tale of poverty and violence?
Photo: Claire Folger
Its at this point that the film, in some senses, splits into two.
Good, replies Monk.
Issa Rae as author Sintara Golden.
Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison inAmerican Fiction.
Monk is both delighted that someone finally agrees with him, and also vaguely offended.
How is it, he asks her, so very different from hers?
Has he forgotten that some of the suffering we see in Black stories is actually real, too?
Issa Rae as author Sintara Golden.
But, he counters, didnt she go to a fancy college and work at a flashy publishing house?
Sintara replies that she isnt writing about her own lifeshes writing about something people are interested in.
Is it so wrong to cater to the market and to the white publishers who run it?
Erika Alexander as Coraline with Jeffrey Wright’s Monk.
Monk argues that shes flattening Black lives and affecting how white people perceive them.
To this, Sintara says, It sounds like your issue is with white people, not me.
Erika Alexander as Coraline with Jeffrey Wrights Monk.
Heres hoping he doesand that his victory gets even more people to see this gem of a movie.
