American Fiction Review 2023 Tv Show Series Season Cast Crew Online

Tyler Perry has his little world in Atlanta where he acts, writes, directs, and produces his films and television shows. He has a unique style that sets him apart from many others. As he is a Black man his projects focus on the Black experience. American Fiction is as Tyler Perry as I’ve ever seen but not nearly as bad as most of his projects. This film by Cord Jefferson is one of the best films of the year. That win at TIIFF for the Audience Award was no fluke. Jefferson has a bonafide success on his hands this awards season.

Thelonious Ellison or “Monk” (Jeffrey Wright) as his friends and family call him is a struggling professor and author. He happens to be going back home to Boston for a book fair so it gives him a break from his students and colleagues who he’s not that fond of. While in Boston he reconnects with his family, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, he is forced to stay in the Massachusetts area longer then he expected, which allows him to work on his career as an author and connect with the woman across the street from his parent’s old beach home.

Jeffrey Wright is an actor who has been around for a while. He has a recurring character Felix Lester in the Daniel Craig James Bond films He has recently done a couple of Wes Anderson movies and played James Gordon in Matt Reeves’ Batman. You could say he has done it all. With that in mind, his character in American Fiction might be the finest work of his entire career, alongside that of Westworld, the HBO reboot series. He put everything he had into this character. He is dealing with a lot and he deals with it in a trange way to some extent.

Cord Jefferson is a name some people might know from his writing work on Watchmen, and Succession to name a couple of things he’s worked on. He has a unique style which in a way he copies to some extent from Tyler Perry. He infuses real Black family drama and situations with a sense of humor like I haven’t seen this year. He puts Wright’s character in awkward circumstances that show the world still has issues with Black Americans. The subplot he uses to show how absurd White America relates to Black America is some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen all year. I was in stitches for most of this film. I couldn’t stop laughing at the ridiculous scenarios that made the White characters in the movie, such as Book Agents or a Film Director look so idiotic. This is one of the most self-referential films I’ve ever seen in my life. Jefferson should be applauded for his efforts.

With a film that deals with multiple subplots and a family dynamic, there has to be a big cast of actors at play. This film has a stellar cast of actors playing a mother/siblings, Leslie Uggums, Sterling K Brown, and Tracee Ellis Ross, colleagues, Issa Rae and John Ortiz, and family acquaintances or friends, Erika Alexander, Raymond Anthony, and Myra Lucretia Taylor. Nobody in this cast is phoning it in. They all have legitimate reasons for being here. I was blown away by how incredible everybody was from the smallest part to the largest. They were all amazing. Not a single character was wasted in this story, and more often than not they brought the laughs.

This movie has a main storyline and multiple subplots. Jefferson executed Percival Everett’s story to perfection. The main storyline was supplemented by the subplots perfectly. One in particular showed Wright’s character having to adjust the way he thinks about his culture. How he interacted with people in these scenes was so masterful. It was like he was playing two characters at the same time yet they had a Jekyll and Hyde mentality. He was literally playing two characters in the same body but they were both great performances. The writer knew how to get these separate alter egos to come out. It was brilliant storytelling and character development. Jefferson and Everett should be proud of what they accomplished here.

There are going to be detractors from this film. People are going to say here we go again. Here is another Black-centric film that makes White people look bad. I’ll disagree with this from a white man’s perspective. This makes Black people look just like anybody else. They have tragedies in their lives, they have breakups, they have illnesses and they have midlife crises. This is just like a white family, Latino family, or Asian family. We all have the same problems. It doesn’t matter if our skin is White, Black, Brown, or any other color for that matter. We’re all the same. It’s time we stop treating non-White races like second-class citizens. This film shows how idiotic that is.

It even pokes fun at Black people in a fun way showing even they know some of the things they do amongst themselves are idiotic. Such as the way they speak in some circumstances or act around themselves. These are stereotypical ways to act but I believe it’s to show they are different and don’t want to be lumped in with other races. Jokes about hair, lips, and so forth were brought up in the film. This shows how they view themselves. Even Black Americans know they have a problems with their own outward appearance and how they are perceived in their own culture. This is a movie that pulls no punches. It points the finger inward and outward. That’s what is so great about it. It’ll be studied for years to come on its merits, ideals and race theory.

American Fiction is one of the best films of the year bar none. Cord Jefferson directs an absolute crowd-pleaser. It had me laughing at the absurdity and idiocy of the world it’s trying to portray. Which isn’t very far from our own world. Jeffrey Wright gives the performance of his career as this man with an identity crisis. Jefferson and Everett poke the finger at everybody with an amazing script. Not one of the massive cast is wasted. They all served their purpose splendidly. The word of mouth out of TIFF was good but I’m here to say this film isn’t good it’s great! Everyone should be championing this movie when it comes out in December. MGM has a legitimate Awards Contender on iits hands next year.

5 stars