American Fiction (Blu-ray review) at Why So Blu?

June 19, 2024 by Adam Toroni-Byrne

I love it when a movie just feels different from the rest. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, watching and reviewing movies, I love being refreshed by new films. It is very clear that movie fans and especially collectors attach great importance to watching movies because they are a comfort to us. So what happens when a movie can warm your heart, then break it and then make you laugh and feel so warm? American fiction is such a movie. Read more about American fiction below and be sure to click on the end of the cover to order a copy for yourself!

Movie

Based on the novel To clear by Percival Everett, Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from “black” entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, Monk uses a pseudonym to write a bizarre “black” book of his own, one that drives him to the heart of the hypocrisy and madness he claims to despise.

There’s something so refreshing about watching a movie that plays out in such a way that you feel like you’ve lived the situation. This is exactly how the movie played out for me. The writer Monk especially wants his work to be absorbed by a large audience. He does not want to classify his characters based on race or life experience. Monk is a writer who claims not to really believe in race. However, while holding on to his ideals, Monk encounters these bumps in the road. He insults his students in the lectures he gives. He sees other black authors finding success by satisfying white mass audiences with difficult fiction about the black experience. For example, as with The Help, we see white characters eating up another author’s story, which contains poor grammar and a repetitive and tired story about the hard times in the ghetto. It’s all certainly ridiculous, but it’s not far from the truth.

In addition to all the work stress, Monk loses his sister to a massive heart attack and is subsequently forced to care for his sick mother. His estranged brother struggles with himself as he struggles to escape from a life in the closet. It’s all too bad for Monk. In the middle of it all, however, there is Coraline, a neighbor of Monk’s mother, who sees Monk as a great writer and quickly falls in love with him. They seem to understand each other so well. With everything going on in his life, Monk decides to decompress and as a joke, the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh gets through and writes a book he calls “My Pafology” and sends it to his agent. When the agent sends out the manuscript and publishers start clamoring to publish it, Monk must turn to the pseudonym, which brings out the persona of an escaped convict, speaks in a way he never would to people and the publishers of white books evolve into filmmakers who want to adapt the unpublished book into a film. When the story inadvertently becomes the darling of the literary world, Monk must decide whether to speak his truth or continue his farce.

I looked American fiction like I’m living my life. A little backstory: I’m of mixed descent. My mother is black and my father is white. Growing up, I remember my neighbor friends telling me that their parents would say that my father “saved her from the ghetto.” It was so strange to me. My mother’s parents worked hard, had a huge house and were not struggling in the literal sense of the word. She met my father, who had a full-time job, and she also worked. There was no rescue. So why this idea? We were the only colored family in the neighborhood. Assumptions and assimilations were made. It was the 80s/90s. Is that the surprise? Not really. The same thing went on forever. Even in high school, being mixed meant I had to be different to different people. I had to “talk white” or “act white” with my white friends or be more “black” to my black and Latino friends. They now call this code switching, but there was no term for it at the time.

I believe the idea of ​​code switching is partly why I think I related so much to Monk. I believe in the importance of being yourself. But for me, being your authentic self doesn’t have to mean being an assumption. Monk has the same ideal. Blackness does not equate to a stereotype. We don’t all talk the same, live the same or behave the same. Like any other culture, there is variation within the subsection. To use a common term, things aren’t always black and white, no pun intended. I can’t say for sure about books, but movies about black people almost always focus on the hard times of a certain group. We have Menace II Society, Boyz N’ The Hood, Poetic Justice, South Central and so many others that focus on crappy dads, gang violence, and characters wanting to “come out.” Suffice to say, these films are all great pieces of cinema. The problem is that these are the films that do well because they focus on a time and place that feels taboo to the people in the audience who don’t live that life. But then we have other movies like Eve’s Bayou, Devil in a Blue Dress, the photo, or even something like that Small where the idea of ​​“the hood” doesn’t even exist. That speaks volumes to me, because the films in the latter category tell different stories and yet it feels as if those films are not so warmly received. That’s a shame, but it brings me back to this point American fiction.

American fiction is the work of writer-director Cord Jefferson. It clearly feels that his tongue was planted further into his cheek than some audience members might understand. The film falls into the latter category of the films I mentioned above, and Jefferson must have released the film hoping that people would understand the humor of it all. Monk’s character is shocked by the stereotyping. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has something to do with this. You see that the other characters in the film do not fall into stereotypes either. Monk’s brother is gay, something that is unfortunately still not the most warmly received in black culture. There is no scene of violence connected to the actual characters, especially not in Monk’s visions as he writes his pseudonymous novel. There are no scenes in a ‘ghetto’ setting. There are no people who speak ‘black’. These are the things all audiences need to understand. What is considered palatable by one audience, the same does not deem palatable to all. Jefferson’s film presents a dark story without the padding, the cliché and the ‘ghetto’. This is commendable in many ways, and something that films featuring people of color could benefit from in the future.

Now the performances here are also something to talk about. Jeffrey Wright in an Oscar-nominated performance is quietly powerful as he meets his match in Erika Alexander, who glows on screen. We also have Sterling K. Brown as the brother living his best gay life, Leslie Uggams as their mother, Tracee Ellis Ross as the sister we only meet for a short time, Keith David as Monk’s inner monologue as he writes his pseudonymous novel, and Issa Rae as a competing black author who took the bait and created the black novel that white readers wanted. Everyone here is compelling and perfect for their roles. The last thing I wanted to point out is that American fiction has somehow been touted as a straight-up comedy. While there are indeed laughs, I wouldn’t classify the film as a comedy. The emotional core of the story is heavy drama, and despite the laughs I can’t say this is pure comedy. So if you’re watching for the first time, I wouldn’t go to the movie to laugh. This isn’t a bad thing, though, as this startling film was easily one of the best of 2023 and thankfully won’t be relegated to Amazon Prime Video to watch it.

Video

NOTE: The photos are for promotional use only and are not from the Blu-ray

• Coding: MPEG-4/AVC
• Solution: 1080P
• Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
• HDR: N/A
• Clarity/detail: Like many of its other films, American fiction debuts on physical media in a beautiful HD Blu-ray. The overall look of the film is cool in tone, but still manages to give off a warm feel. Clarity is second only to a 4K disc for obvious reasons, but nothing looks blurry or flat in any way.
• Depth: Depth is also perfect. Foregrounds and backgrounds all look just right, with focus keeping pace with smooth tracking and zooms. Nothing looks strange and the film is beautifully shot.
• Black levels: Black levels appear on par with the rest of the proceedings. No crush, no gray – Black looks just right!
• Color reproduction: Colors look nice and cool. Lots of blues and grays, but there are glimpses of color that look natural and clean throughout.
• Meat tones: Skin tones are also displayed very naturally. No one on screen looks out of place or overly made up.
• Noise/artifacts: Beautiful

Audio

• Audio format(s): English DTS-HD MA 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, French and Spanish
• Dynamics: American fiction is primarily a dialogue-driven film. The DTS-HD 5.1 mix accompanying the film is sonically mixed quite loudly. This doesn’t mean it’s distorted, but that you can keep the volume level below 50 dB and still hear the movie just fine. This is a mix I didn’t expect to like based on volume alone, but everything else fits together beautifully too!
• Height: N/A
• Low frequency extension: Music is the main source of LFE activity and that’s fine. The beautiful score and global musical needle all sound great, with nice bass response filling out the other channels nicely.
• Surround sound presentation: Surrounds are for light sound effects, as much of the film takes place near the beach. City chatter and more also sometimes pop up in the area.
• Dialogue reproduction: Expertly imitated dialogues resonate throughout the film!

Extras

No extras are included American fiction.

Resume

American fiction are very drastic for me. There is a heavy tone of sadness and disappointment in the film, but there is also a bouncy lightness that gives it mass appeal. Whether the public understands that or not remains to be seen. Who knows who watched it on Prime Video? And if the viewership was good, was the film ultimately something that audiences understood? The ending of the film leaves things open to interpretation, and so I will end my review the same way. Take what you will about this movie, but I got sucked in and I’m glad I did because it felt so relatable. Worth a watch regardless of your race, and a reminder that not all films with black casts or stories have to be about the struggles that so many people of color endure. Look at that!