Sterling K Brown

American Fiction

03/02/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

If these first few weeks are anything to go by, 2024 is going to be a good year for film. Cord Jefferson’s debut feature is a long way from your typical bums-on-seats blockbuster, but the cinema is hearteningly busy tonight. We’re in for a treat.

American Fiction is a clever, cerebral film, exploring the reductive nature of the Black stories that are promoted by white-controlled media. Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a Black writer and professor, earning more from teaching than he does from his highbrow books. But in a brilliantly satirical scene, we see his white students complaining that he is making them uncomfortable by explicitly referring to the racist language deployed by the period authors they’re studying. When his white bosses back them up, Monk bristles: he isn’t the sort to back down easily. Before long, he’s been practically ordered to ‘take a break’, and so he heads reluctantly to Boston for a long overdue visit to his family, his employment status decidedly shaky. Is this what happens to Black people when they don’t comply with liberal white people’s notions of how to address racism? Wow.

To add to Monk’s woes, his agent (John Ortiz), calls to say that his latest manuscript hasn’t found a buyer. “It’s not Black enough,” Arthur tells him. “What does that mean?” asks Monk, although he knows exactly what it means. It means that his literary novels don’t conform to the blaxploitation model that white people like to indulge in; it isn’t anything like Sintara Golden’s runaway bestseller, We’s Lives in da Ghetto. As a fawning TV interviewer heaps praise on Golden (Issa Rae), Wright imbues Monk with an understated and entirely credible fury. In Bialystock-Blum mode, he pseudonymously dashes off a ridiculous pastiche of a Black novel and then watches incredulously as it become a huge success. He’d like to take the opportunity to go public and make his point – but his mom (Leslie Uggams) is sick, and someone has to pay for her care…

This well-written and often laugh-out-loud funny script, based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, deftly punctures the self-aggrandising nature of allyship, as white people vie to show off their woke credentials, often at the expense of the actual Black people sitting next to them. It’s also a beautifully-observed depiction of complex family dynamics, as Monk and his doctor siblings (Tracee Ellis Ross and Sterling K Brown) struggle to deal with their fractured relationships and their mother’s decline. It’s bold, intelligent – and also very accessible. The fourth-wall-breaking final ten minutes are especially audacious, but the entire two-hour run is a joy to behold.

Both thoughtful and thought-provoking, American Fiction is an impressive piece of work, deftly straddling the highbrow/lowbrow chasm that so infuriates its protagonist.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Hotel Artemis

HA_01515_CC Sterling K. Brown in HOTEL ARTEMIS. Photo credit: Matt Kennedy / Distributor: Global Road Entertainment

25/07/18

Set in a dystopian, near future Los Angeles… boy, if only I had a tenner for every time I’ve started a review with that line… there exists a secret location that’s kind of like BUPA for criminals. Basically, bad people become members, they pay their dues every month and, when they find themselves all shot up and in urgent need of medical attention, this is where they come to recuperate. The joint is run by The Nurse (Jodie Foster), once a valued member of the caring profession, now a hopeless alcoholic with a penchant for repairing the trickiest of wounds. You need a new liver? No problem! She has a 3D printer that can make you one! She’s ably assisted by Everest (Dave Bautista), a veritable man-mountain who’ll do anything for her but, she’s not a happy bunny,  haunted by something bad in her past, something we occasionally catch unsettling glimpses of.

Into this pressure cooker setting comes Waikiki (Sterling K. Brown) and his brother, Honolulu (Bryan Tyree Henry), who – after a bank job has gone belly-up – are badly wounded and struggling to survive. (In case you’re wondering about those names, characters are called after the holiday-themed rooms in which they are installed.)

But things are more complicated than usual. A problem with LA’s biggest water supplier has kicked off violent riots on the streets, so even getting across town is problematic. Once safely in the building, Waikiki meets up with his ‘friend,’ Nice (Sofia Boutella), an assassin who makes her living from bumping off VIPs, sharing the kill with her employers via a camera embedded in her head. Well, we’ve all got to earn a living, right?

And then, in comes The Wolf King (Jeff Goldblum), who, as the name might suggest, is LA’s most powerful gangster and also, it turns out, the man who set up the Hotel Artemis in the first place. So nobody is going to keep him out, right? Problem is, for a very important reason, he’s the last person that Waikiki and Honolulu want to meet up with…

Writer/director Drew Pearce’s futuristic film is an assured and intriguing piece of cinema. It may have all the trappings of a sci-fi movie, but it’s much more about the characters and the way they interact with each other. The complex storyline generates plenty of tension and there are  some fine performances from an ensemble cast. Foster is particularly good, submitting a brilliant character study in the lead role that makes me wish she’d act in more films. The setting too, with each room styled around a different theme, is memorable. Perhaps inevitably, in the final reel, events descend into violence, but this too is well-handled and doesn’t outstay its welcome. More sensitive viewers may wish to glance away from the screen at key moments.

So, that’s the Hotel Artemis. Well worth booking into for a short and occasionally enthralling city break. Just don’t expect to come out in one piece.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney