Written by Andreas Babiolakis

Warning: The following review is of a film that is part of TIFF 2023 and may contain spoilers for American Fiction. Reader discretion is advised.

The people have spoken.

The People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival is the official start to the awards season race as we know it, particularly if you view the Academy Awards as the finish line. Ever since Slumdog Millionaire, the vast majority of the winners of this annual award voted on by the Toronto public have gone on to be nominated for Best Picture (Jojo Rabbit, La La Land, The Fabelmans) or have flat-out won the award (Green Book, Nomadland). This may be because a popular vote from the general movie-going public of all walks of life indicates what resonates as a crowd pleaser: works that aren’t too challenging to the point of polarization. Case in point: this year’s winner is Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut American Fiction, which is a satire that replaces the signature savage bite of the style with a warm embrace to best deliver its crucial talking points on race via understanding and not scorn. While it is still an interesting effort with hilarious results and intriguing ideas, American Fiction is very much a crowd-pleaser through and through and not the kind of satire that is willing to disembowel societal norms before your very eyes: a light spanking will serve as enough punishment.

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (so not that Thelonious Monk), played tremendously by Jeffrey Wright, is an author from California who cannot seem to land his next book deal. His novels are erroneously placed in the African American Studies section of bookstores because of his race much to his chagrin. He sees the works of rival author Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) take off despite how far back it set the Black community in his eyes. Her latest novel, We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, is full of problematic, inaccurate stereotypes and yet Sintara Golden is lauded as the voice of a generation. Meanwhile, Monk is suffering. His mom’s Alzheimer’s is worsening. His sister, Lisa, has her own personal woes that will soon become Monk’s. His brother, Clifford, is his very antithesis and their relationship is quite dysfunctional. Without giving away too many of the quickly developing problems in Monk’s life, all you need to know is that one of these disastrous events will become the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back as he sets out to write the worst novel purely out of spite: if authors like Sintara Golden can get away with rubbish, why can’t he? Money gets tight, so there’s a brief window of opportunity and Monk seizes it.

He pens My Pafology under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh: a low-quality effort of life in the ghetto that leads to criminal actions. The next day, Monk submits the novel as a joke; it’s more of a “fuck you” than anything at first. Then it gets bought outright and there’s even a movie deal right around the corner for a whopping four million dollars to obtain the rights to produce. Monk is almost always against the idea, but he desperately needs this money to save his family (or what’s left of it). While all of this nonsense is going on (case in point: My Pafology winds up becoming Fuck and Monk gets away with even this), we see the necessary dichotomy. Monk leads a non-stereotypical version of the Black experience. His anger with mistruths — particularly being sold to those who pretend to care about marginalized communities just to feel absolved without actually wanting to be connected to these voices — enhances his own experiences. Monk’s point is simple: representation is important, but it actually has to represent a community, not what we’re led to believe is the community.

Jefferson’s debut is an adaptation of Erasure by Percival Everett, but the first-time director made sure to make the novel’s self-awareness applicable to the big screen. While its meta moments are few and far between, there are enough to make American Fiction feel at least a tiny bit like Adaptation. in the sense that you feel a tug-of-war between art and marketability. American Fiction even presents us with a multitude of ways that this whole ordeal can end and implores us to select what the best closure would be. It doesn’t matter in the end because art is a subjective, converging experience between the medium and its recipient, and Monk despises how this opportunity to educate, connect, and explore has become a business transaction that cheapens any authenticity that was once present. While I wish American Fiction was a little more ruthless with its satire (particularly the warm tone of the film is more beneficial for American Fiction’s sympathetic side but not its cynical side), it is a parody that understands that not everyone is willing to listen to cinematic lambasting. With a more tender touch, American Fiction is a feature that invites you in before it scolds you; the main crux of the film with My Pafology only kicks off about forty minutes in (or so it felt).

While the film boasts an acting exposition from all involved (including an extremely minor role from Tracee Ellis Ross who left me aching for more), this is most definitely Jeffrey Wright’s playground. One of the greatest actors of our time, it’s criminal that he hasn’t been nominated for an Academy Award before. While I won’t pretend that this is his greatest performance, it’s a powerful yet natural turn from Wright that is equal parts hilarious, heartbreaking, and aggravating. We feel his frustrations entwined with his anxieties, particularly when he feels compelled to brute force his way into the ultimate book deal that can save his family but squash his dignity for the rest of his lifetime. Because of the TIFF catalyst that will likely plant American Fiction in the Best Picture category now, Wright may finally get his recognition from the Academy. Even if he doesn’t, it’s clear at this point that he is too damn good for any accolade and that his transformability will stand the test of time alone.

American Fiction seems to end as soon as it begins but that’s kind of the point: it is the snowball effect of societal misconceptions. I’m a sucker for satire and meta-commentary so I obviously could have done with even just a little more, but American Fiction reminds us that we’ve missed the point if we’re left grasping at what we can get to satisfy our own personal interests. The main takeaway is what does a film about race relations state about race relations? Well, American Fiction has a lot to say between its scathing take on profitable literature about sociopolitical commentary and its honest depiction of American living. If you are as invested in self-aware films as I am, American Fiction won’t feel like anything new, but it will be a sensible foray for those who are interested in discovering the powers of satire.

While American Fiction is tame enough, I’m pleased that it actually does have interesting things to say in neat — albeit previously unearthed — ways. It could have settled for all of the typical Hollywood ways but it savours those for the emotional elements necessary to prove Everett and Jefferson’s point: the people won’t listen unless you give them what you want. American Fiction does that while offering enough of a sting to get major points across. Something is fitting yet ironic about the film winning the People’s Choice Award at TIFF. On one hand, it clearly resonated with the majority of the Toronto public to win this award. On the other, I’d like to believe that people properly understood the message here and identified with it while voting, because part of me cannot help but wonder if a percentage of a popularity vote identified more with Stagg R. Leigh than with Thelonious Ellison: the screening I went to had laughter and celebration at times that left me with these concerns. With this in mind, there’s an extra layer of specialness with American Fiction: discerning who this film is about, and who is for its crusade. Those who get the film, and those who endorse it despite not knowing that it is about them and their justification of banality and harmful, stereotypical discourse in art that sets us back as a civilization. This will only grow more and more important with time, and that final point alone makes the People’s Choice Award — and American Fiction’s awards season run — highly appropriate.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.