December 18, 2023 – A frustrated college literature professor gets drunk one night and writes a joke novel which embodies all he finds objectionable about the way blacks are portrayed, and it backfires on him in a very outlandish way. The movie is based on the 2001 novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett.

The black professor, Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright of “The Batman”) gets in trouble with a liberal snowflake student in his classroom, and is ordered to take a vacation from teaching. He leaves home in California to visit his family in Boston, only to find that his mother Agnes (played by Leslie Uggams of “Deadpool”) is suffering from advanced dementia.

Monk's sister, Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross of “The High Note”) has been taking care of Agnes, but she fears that Agnes will have to be placed in a nursing home soon. Monk has been estranged from his successful family (two of his siblings are doctors) but seems to be reconnecting with his sister, when she suddenly dies. This leaves Monk in charge of caring for his mother, and he doesn't have the money for nursing home care.

Monk's latest book, an erudite reworking of Aeschylus’s “The Persians” is not selling. His agent, Arthur, incurs the formidable wrath of Monk when he tells him that publishers think his books aren't “black enough.” Monk has another fit about this in a book store when he finds one of his literary books in the “African American” section of the store. He scowls at the store clerk and proclaims the blackest thing about his book is the ink.

To top it all off, a young, pretty, upper class, well-educated black woman author, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae of “Vengeance”) has a book that everyone is raving about, named “We’s Lives In Da Ghetto.” Golden has all the success that Monk craves. He thinks Golden's book was written to appeal to white publishers looking for a kind of black exploitation pornography based on poverty, drugs, crime and family dysfunction. That's what sells.

Drunk and fed up, Monk sets down at his typewriter one night and cranks his own blaxploitation book, just out of spite, and calls it, “My Pafology” in which the angry protagonist kills his own father (Monk himself felt betrayed by his own father). Monk pours all of his anger and frustration into this mockery of a book, and sends it off to his agent, Arthur, who is aghast, but reluctantly sends it off to publishers, under the pen name of “Stagg R. Leigh” (a reference to a song title).

His book, “My Pafology” turns into an instant success, with a six figure publishing deal and a multi million dollar movie deal, even after a frustrated Monk insists that the name of the book be changed to “Fuck.” He can't seem to kill the success of his hated book. The money from the book and movie deals means that he can put his mother into a good nursing home, but he can't reconcile his own conflicted feelings about it. He is confounded by the success of the book. At one point, he says, “The dumber I behave the richer I get.”

When his book is selected for a fiction competition that he is judging, he can't admit that he is the book's author to the other judges in the panel, which includes Sintara Golden. In discussion with Golden, he is surprised when he discovers she is not the literary hack he supposed she was. Monk can't bring himself to tell anyone about the source of his newfound success, even his family, or his new girlfriend, Coraline (Erika Alexander of “Get Out”). He gets so angry at Coraline for liking his book that she throws him out of her house.

Another complication is that the fictional author of the book, Stagg R. Leigh, is being successfully marketed by Arthur as a criminal on the run. The FBI thinks Stagg R. Leigh is a real criminal, and is after him. At this point, Monk's anger and frustration about the success of his own Frankenstein monster of a creation comes to a head. The movie can't, at this point, seem to decide on the perfect resolution to Monk's situation. The story (by writer-director Cord Jefferson of the “Watchmen” TV miniseries) instead throws several endings at the audience, including one violent ending, along with a romantic ending and a movie-within-a-movie ending. There are even comments in the film about the various endings.

The film uses some imaginative visuals, including enactments of scenes imagined by Monk in the room where he is writing his book. Other enactments appear when Monk is proposing different endings for the movie based on his book. The story includes many other complications, including Monk's operatic, angry, gay brother, Clifford Ellison (Sterling K. Brown of “Black Panther”) and a longtime family maid, Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor of “The Big Sick”) who takes care of Monk's mother.

This is a very funny film, thanks to its over the top satire of publishing and Hollywood. Famed playwright George S. Kaufman quipped, “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But some satires, like those in “Doctor Strangelove” (1964) or “Tootsie” (1982) can be very entertaining, especially if the satire is broad enough. If it is more clever than funny, or is too subtle, or too hard edged, satire can prove to be fatally unpopular.

This movie strikes a good balance between broad satire and character-driven humor. Monk is an unlikable curmudgeon who can't help but speak his mind, yet Jeffrey Wright imbues him with enough humanity that he is a character that you can root for. You end up hoping this guy will get his act together and that he finds love. It is a great performance, ably supported by the rest of the cast. In fact, most of the characters in this story end up in a good place. Monk is the only one who just doesn't quite fit in. This movie rates an A.

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