American Fiction review – wry literary satire is a mixed bag
A s the old saying goes, there are really no great movies whose title consists of two words, the first of which is “American”. There are some decent ones. There are, in fact, some very decent ones. But there’s something about this oft-employed title structure which is destined to prevent any film upon which it is adorned from attaining true, untrammelled greatness. There’s no science behind it, but one might hazard that it denotes an attempt by the makers of the film to offer a grand gesture aimed not just at a small pocket of American society, but one that applies to everyone. Maybe the formulation doesn’t work because it suggests scuppered hubris – a lofty ambition that’s not met. When you’re stating that the lessons in the film you’ve made apply to everyone, you’re setting yourself up for a fall. American Fiction is Cord Jefferson’s plucky entry into this cursed canon, and it is based on the 2001 satirical novel Erasure by the great author and academic, Percival Everett. One of
