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Nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay, Cord Jefferson’s smart and subversively funny directorial debut puts our society’s fixation on cultural stereotypes under the microscope. Adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, the film stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a professor and frustrated novelist who’s fed up with the establishment profiting from “Black” entertainment that relies on offensive tropes. Aiming for satire, Monk uses a pen name to write an outlandish “Black” book of his own, a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain. Sterling K. Brown, nominated for a Best Supporting Actor, gives a memorable performance as Monk’s brother. Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae and Leslie Uggams, as Monk’s mother, are also in top form.
“Jefferson overlays the story’s most biting wit with layers of warmth, sadness and discovery that make this movie far more than the sum of its parts.” — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
“Monk is perfect the way he is, especially as Wright plays him. Watching this performance makes American Fiction a complex, sometimes discomfiting pleasure.” — Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine
Cord Jefferson
Cord Jefferson, Percival Everett (based on his novel)
Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Sterling K. Brown, Issa Rae, Leslie Uggams
United States