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Reviews

Amy Nicholson, New York Times:

Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction is a cagey, cerebral dramedy about a joke that backfires on its author, a stone-faced literature professor named Thelonious ["Monk"] Ellison (Jeffrey Wright).

Alison Willmore, Vulture:

In a burst of frustration, and having just watched a bit of Get Rich or Die Tryin’ on a hotel TV, [Monk] scribbles out a compendium of over-the-top clichés about urban suffering under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh, [and] titles it “My Pafology.”

[…]

[Publishers give it] a huge offer, leaving Monk in conflicted anguish.

Jourdain Searles, IndieWire:

American Fiction keeps its critical eye focused on the gullible nature and patronizing tone of white people who are incapable of appreciating or engaging with Black intellectualism in any meaningful way.

Odie Henderson, Boston Globe:

The satire isn’t as brutal as it could have been — and perhaps needed to be — but overall, I thought American Fiction was a rousing success that got me thinking about my own experiences.

[…]

I could identify with how much my own Blackness has been used to pigeonhole me, over the course of my writing career, by editors who have either pitched only Black-themed articles to me or expected my film knowledge to consist solely of Madea, Spike Lee, slavery movies, and Soul Plane.

Murtada Elfadl, AV Club:

Wright is commanding in the lead role, and he has fantastic chemistry with all of the cast.

Ayo Edebiri, Letterboxd:

Capturing Jeffrey Wright trying to eat an olive is one of the reasons the camera was invented.

Peyton Robinson, RogerEbert.com:

However, American Fiction often treats its Black women as accessories to the story.