Breath-Taking. Real. Raw. What the world needs right now. Common phrases slapped onto film and literature reviews when they delicately graze against contemporary political conversations. But if I were to review this film in such a way, Director Cord Jefferson would probably slip my article into the Humour section of WHSmith due to the laughable ignorance regarding the entire message of the film: how do we address narrow, stereotyped communities in an effective manner without accidentally re-affirming any initial clichés? The answer: we aren’t quite sure, but at least we are starting to have the conversation.
Jeffery Wright (Monk) and Sterling K. Brown (Cliff) carry this film with their witty repartee and dry sense of humour, making the most sombre of moments tickle you pink. Not only this, but Jefferson manages to deliver a debate with a great eloquence, a refreshing change for comedic films.
The balance between satirising stereotypes to prove a point and producing something conducive of real-life experience for a small percentage of communities is a very delicate distinction that Jefferson implores us to explore. It is a tricky tango that protagonist Theolonius (‘Monk’) Ellison is unstable in, as he decides to create a satirical ghost-written novel involving stereotypical ‘black’ narratives to demonstrate how ridiculous these capitalised clichés are. Unbeknownst to him, the book would turn out to be a huge hit.
Monk travels on a journey of harsh, ironic revelation as he attempts to overcome the isolation he feels within his life. His family being depicted as wealthy, extremely well-educated individuals who go on to hold successful careers as doctors reflects the isolation he feels from within his family and the world of literature. That isolation festers and grows as he overhears an excerpt of what he thinks is a stereotyped, farce piece of literature by Sintara Golden. Her book is largely written in colloquial language and is criticised by Monk for promoting racial stereotypes for profit. But when she explains her in-depth background research undertaken to create the narrative, Monk is pulled into the moral dilemma of whether his book is now offensively stereotyping experiences that he does not have any first-hand encounters in (that being gang violence, murder, and extreme poverty).
In this case, can we still consider it to fulfil the same purpose of enlightening satire, or does it cast a shadow of re-affirmed stereotypes?
The question of whether the wider public will understand Monk’s novel as satire is reflected in the brilliant configuration of the concluding moments, to which no straight answer is given, and a rather melancholic, anti-climatic tone lingers. His reflection of his experience leads to a last-minute issue on dramatic clichés in Hollywood, however I felt this argument was a bit of a throwaway and not grounded in the rest of the debate.
This debate of the satire novel, in combination with the layered isolation Monk experiences, creates great food for thought on what it means to be a part of generalised communities, and it is delivered in a light, humorous style. Call me comic, but I think this film is exactly ‘what the world needs right now’ to break the illusion that communities are narrow and linear, when in fact they are broad, multi-faceted and diverse.
“Sterling K. Brown” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.