It's incredible how the characters and situations in American Fiction are able to casually and effortlessly make you laugh your butt off. The satire on the perception of Black lives, Black literature, Black films, and pop culture in general, is so candidly put across that it's hard not to sense the overall freshness in storytelling. It subtly pokes fun at those who seem "woke" whenever it's convenient and panders to their narratives, and the film calls it out louder for the ones in the back. The humour in the film is just unbelievably blunt, spontaneous, and when it unfolds in a situational fashion with splendid performers like Jeffrey Wright (who plays the protagonist Monk, a grumpy writer), John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, and Sterling K Brown doing their duties well, American Fiction turns into a very enriching experience. Wright, especially, is on a roll with his impromptu reactions.

I think the film also did fairly good in making us connect with the uneasy dynamics within Monk's family. They all feel like real flesh & blood characters, with opinions and perspectives of their own. However, the (meta) humour quotient peaks whenever the film showcases events surrounding the satirical novel that Monk writes under the pseudonym of a convict on the run. Not only does it effectively mock literary cliches associated with Black writers, but writer-director Cord Jefferson also goes the distance and satirizes Hollywood's fetish for such narratives. Adam Brody, in a cameo as an incorrigible Hollywood screenwriter, is darn good too.