American Fiction (2023) *****

 

In Radha Blank's 2020 film “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” Radha raps about “poverty porn.”

“Yo, it’s poverty porn,

you regular Blacks are just such a yawn.

If I want

to get on,

better write me some poverty porn.”

She was talking about ghetto stories of drug abuse, crime, single mothers, and cop shootings, turned into a sort of pornography for middle-class America to gawk at and feel smug for feeling pity. Her character in the film, a frustrated playwright, finds that poverty porn is what the white people around her- her agent, her producer, and her audience- seem to want and expect from a black artist.

Blank isn't the first black artist to express frustration at being pushed to make poverty porn. Percival Everett's 2001 novel Erasure explores the same theme, and now screenwriter/director Cord Jefferson has brought that book to film with “American Fiction”. Jeffrey Wright plays Monk Ellison, an English professor whose white students pitch self-righteous fits when he assigns them books that contain the N-word. He is also a writer struggling to get his latest novel published. Ellison writes about universal themes, but because he is black, his books tend to get filed in the African-American Studies section, and publishers hint that they would be quicker to publish something more “relevant to the black experience.” Poverty porn, in other words.

Ellison looks around and sees another black writer, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) having great success with her book “We's Lives in da Ghetto.” Golden's book, written in inner city vernacular, is straight poverty porn, and white liberals are lapping it up. Out of frustration, Ellison sits down and writes his own poverty porn story. He sends the book out under a pseudonym, assuming that publishers will recognize it as a joke. Instead, publishers embrace the book as a genuine depiction of the black experience, and Ellison finds himself with a best-seller on his hands.

Meanwhile, Ellison's life is falling apart. His professor job is in jeopardy due to those sensitive, white students. His upper-middle-class family is struggling with his mother's new-onset dementia, and his siblings, both doctors, are not able to help as much as they should. The reclusive Monk is forced to become a caregiver while coming to terms with his estranged siblings and dealing with his late father's legacy of infidelity.

“American Fiction” is a very sneaky movie. Ellison's family drama is actually the kind of Oscar-bait story that we see all the time in film, but almost always featuring a white family. Being black, Hollywood would typically depict Ellison's family as poor, and someone would end up getting shot by the police. Director Cord Jefferson's big trick is that in the middle of a sharp, funny satire about black artists and poverty porn, he gets us to watch a universal drama about a family that is struggling despite their wealth and education, who just happen to be black.

5 stars out of 5

Fargo (1996) *****

 

Writer/director Ethan Coen this year released the movie “Drive-Away Dolls,” his first project, as far as I know, without the help of his usual writing, directing, and producing partner, Joel Coen. The event reminded me how much I love so many Coen Brothers films, and it seemed like a good time to re-watch one of their best.

William H. Macy plays Jerry Lundegaard, a sad-sack car salesman who needs some cash. His attempts to get the money from his wealthy father-in-law are rebuffed, so he hires a couple of criminals, Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife. Jerry plans to split the ransom money, which he figures will come from his father-in-law, with the “kidnappers,” and he'll get the cash he needs with no harm to anyone. Naturally, the plan goes awry, and these scoundrels wind up with pregnant small-town police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) on their tail.

“Fargo” is just a masterpiece! This is what happens when you get the right combination of writer, director, and cast. William H. Macy's portrayal of Jerry is fascinating to watch, as his expressive, hound-dog face shifts seamlessly from vulnerability to deceitfulness and back again. His pleading eyes seem to be saying, “Please believe my lies. They are all I have.” We don't get a lot of back-story on Jerry, but the essence of the character is that he is a man with no power. He lacks the character to do hard things, so in every situation, whatever power he has is taken from him. This happens with his father-in-law, and it happens with Carl and Gaear, who immediately sense his weakness. Jerry should be leading a quiet, dull life, but he lacks the character to settle for what is his due, and he has just enough imagination to get himself into trouble trying to get more.

“Fargo” is a story about 2 different worlds: One world in which decent people paint bird pictures to be put on stamps, and another world in which people think nothing of kidnapping and murder. It's a story about how easily one of those worlds can intrude on the other. Carl and Gaear represent the banality of evil. They don't enter Jerry's life at random. He invites them. They can enter your life, too. All you have to do is ask.

5 stars out of 5

Hit Man (2023) ****

 

For over a decade, a college professor named Gary Johnson worked for the Houston police department. He didn't advise them on points of law or forensics. Gary would put on a wire and pretend to be a killer for hire. He would meet with people who had reached out looking for a hit man, and his recordings would provide the evidence to arrest and jail them.

Gary's story was the basis for a 2001 TexasMonthly article, which director Richard Linklater and actor Glen Powell turned into a screenplay, in which they take the bones of Gary's story and then veer wildly into fantasy. Powell plays Gary, a nerdy professor whose other job is doing tech support for police sting operations. When the cop who usually does the pretend-hit-man thing gets suspended, Gary gets thrust into the role. He seems an unlikely undercover operative, but he turns out to be a natural. In sting after sting, Gary adopts different personae to make his targets comfortable enough to say out loud that they want him to murder someone.

Then Gary meets Madison (Adria Arjona), who is looking to have her abusive husband killed. Maybe it's because she is super-hot, or maybe it's because she seems genuinely scared and desperate, but Gary feels that Madison is different from his usual targets. He abandons the sting and convinces Madison to seek a divorce instead of a murder-for-hire. Naturally, that's not the last he sees of her. Gary, or actually his alter-ego Ron, winds up in a steamy relationship with Madison, who still thinks he is a hitman, and soon we are forced to reconsider who is fooling whom here.

Richard Linklater has expressed that he thinks films these days should have more sex, and he does his part here to bring sex back to cinema. “Hit Man” is downright steamy. Even when Powell and Arjona have their clothes on, they have great chemistry. It helps that Linklater moved the story from Houston to New Orleans, which is an inherently sexy city.

“Hit Man” borrows its superficial themes from classic noir films like “Double Indemnity,” but its lighter tone makes it more a dark, screwball comedy rather than a true noir. The real theme of the film is the question of whether it's possible to change your life and/or your personality, and what would you be willing to do to make that happen.

This is a delightful movie, and a joy to watch. Powell and Arjona are very easy on the eyes, and both give great performances. The supporting cast is tight, too. Other than a couple of questionable plot points, it is almost a perfect film. They should make more like it!

4 stars out of 5