Never underestimate the power of saying something old in a fresh, new way. With his feature film debut American Fiction, writer and director Cord Jefferson is standing on the shoulders of giants – namely Robert Townsend and Spike Lee’s – with his biting satire about what kinds of Black stories interest white audiences. And while the satire might be razor sharp, Jefferson simultaneously offers up a slice-of-life story about a man coming to terms with his imperfect family, how they’ve shaped him into an imperfect person, and how he’s helped with that project himself.
