American Fiction

This is not the first movie where a novelist or artist invents a fake persona to represent their work. It’s Shakespeare. It’s Oscar Wilde. It’s Tootsie. It’s The Hoax. And the racial stereotyping, or pandering to people's stereotypes for some kind of gain (mastered by Eddie Murphy), is tricky. It would be eye-rollingly offensive if it weren’t for the delicate, precise, high-wire performance from veteran Jeffrey Wright. It functions as a racial satire to point out the book-world hypocrisy, but also evolves into full H.A.M. meta-movie, with multiple endings, etc. Thoroughly entertaining, mainly due to Wright, but also, like all good satires, shines a light on a societal minefield.