AMERICAN FICTION (15)

A scathingly hilarious satire about an African American writer facing an industry that reduces Black storytelling to trauma and poverty narratives. Jeffery Wright plays Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Wright) who is constantly being told by his agent that his intellectual novels just don’t sell. Cynically, under a pseudonym, he puts together a parody of “ghetto” fiction, teeming with clichés about gangbangers, drug dealers and pimps. To his consternation, it’s a huge success. Adapted from the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett, and balancing Monk’s personal life against the gags, this is an assured debut feature by TV writer Jefferson (Succession, Master of None) with a pitch-perfect cast led by Wright.