American Fiction – 7

An engaging cast of caricatures tickles some serious subjects in the first (or at least best)  Black-Lives-Matters-Culture-Page-backlash film of the year. I’m generally uneasy watching someone pretending to be someone he isn’t and experienced that discomfort here, but it all worked out in the clever end, which added an additional meta layer on Cord Jefferson’s rumination on race, literature, family and relationships. Jeffrey Wright is excellent as, among other attributes, a proud Black man who won’t be defined by race.
[I promised to stop this obsession, but I can’t help but note how gratuitous the one cigarette-smoking scene was: the sister, a minor character who leaves the film early, lights up while driving home. “I didn’t know you started smoking again,” our hero comments. That’s it. What is the Hollywood rule, written or merely observed, that requires a cigarette to appear in every film?]