Any movie with the word fiction in its title should be a flag that something is about to be said about truth. That’s exactly what happens in this occasionally biting, but more often tentative parody of the commercialization of art.
Thelonious Ellison (Wright) is a writing professor in California who has been searching, for much too long, for an interested publisher for his latest novel. After several ideological standoffs with students, Ellison, who goes by the name Monk, is forced to take some time off. He decides to return to Boston to spend some time with his family from which he is somewhat estranged. Following some unexpected events, he finds himself in a position to support his aging mother.
Fed up with the popularity of what he considers inferior novels that hold little literary value for encouraging the deterioration of African-American dignity, he sardonically writes a gratuitous novel himself. This work, full of stereotypical characters and overblown language, is just the kind of novel he abhors. Just the kind of novel that goes against all his artistic sensibilities.
When the book he initially writes as a joke finds success, Monk struggles with his attempt to maintain his own integrity as a writer. This leads to an identity crisis, which causes tension in the already strained relationships he has with those around him.
Wright’s portrayal of Monk is as steady as a well-written sentence. He never lets his character get away from the artist within, even while struggling with outside forces that want to exploit him. The other performers come through as well, particularly Brown as his brother Cliff, who is having identity issues of his own within the family.
Jefferson, who also co-wrote the screenplay, clearly emphasizes his own distaste for a whole host of trends: art as commerce, the exploitation of experience, and the demand to absolve white people from the history of African Americans. These and other statements about the destructive commercialism of literature are right to a point, and at times illuminating, though they may not be as abundant as needed to make the film satirical enough to bring the industry practice down.
In a sense, the idea of what is American is based on fiction. Better yet, on a dream. The behavior of characters in this film are far from dreamlike, but their motivations are based on ideals that drive them, though it is not always clear whether they are being driven towards or away from these ideals. The truth might be in the process of searching, but anyone who settles on a truth might be disappointed that it is just that. Settling.
