This is as scathing a slice of social commentary as 2021’s Don’t Look Up ... and just as timely and relevant.
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| With his professional life taking an increasingly chaotic turn, Monk (Jeffrey Wright) finds joy in his slowly developing relationship with Coraline (Erika Alexander). |
These two qualities seem wholly at odds with each other, and yet Jefferson makes it work. The result is enthralling — by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, sensitive and blistering — from the first moment to the last.
And very, very clever.
Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a respected author and professor of English literature, with several thoughtful, critically acclaimed books to his credit. Alas, they’ve not sold well, much to his disappointment, and that of his agent, Arthur (John Ortiz, making the most of a small part). Worse yet, his newest manuscript has collected nothing but rejection letters.
The carefully worded reason, from each potential publisher? The book “isn’t Black enough.”
“They want a Black book,” Arthur sighs.
“They have one,” Monk snaps back. “I’m Black, and it’s my book!”
This fuels Monk’s ire over — to quote Jefferson, in the film’s press notes — American culture’s tunnel-visioned fascination with Black trauma, typified by the fact that books and films almost never portray Black doctors, professors or scientists, preferring instead to focus on Black rappers, drug addicts, gang-bangers and slaves.
Because that’s what sells to the white audience.
Monk also is impatient when it comes his students’ cultural sensitivities, insisting that only snowflakes would be bothered by a course in early fiction of the American South, which includes coverage of Flannery O’Connor’s The Artificial N- and Other Tales. This attitude doesn’t endear Monk to his departmental colleagues.
But the absolute worst comes when Monk’s presence on a Boston literary festival panel draws a pitifully small audience, because almost everybody is in the much larger hall that features Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), whose newly published first book, We’s Lives In Da Ghetto, has become a smash best-seller.
Her read-aloud excerpt makes Monk wince, since the content and fractured English clearly panders to readers seeking stereotypical stories of Black misery.
Watch Wright’s expression, in this scene, as Monk stands at the back of the hall. He slowly takes in the room, his gaze becoming ever more despondent, as he sees the audience hanging onto Golden’s every word. It’s a masterful moment of silent acting.
