This comedy is based on Percival Everett’s novel Erasure but renamed American Fiction to sound more like an Oscar movie (and less like an Arnie movie).

The story follows Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), a frustrated author whose works are frequently rejected for not being “black enough”. In a perfect storm of professional jealousy, subversive protest, and the need to pay for his ailing mother’s (Leslie Uggams) care home, Monk seizes the opportunity to sell out. He pens a stereotypical black novel complete with poverty, drug-related violence and police brutality. And much to his annoyance, white people lap the book up.

The notion of sarcasm being mistaken for sincere brilliance (the internet calls it Poe’s law) is a common theme in Fiction, perhaps best realised in The Producers. But Cord Jefferson’s debut feature puts a fresh spin on the idea, raising some timely questions around the white, liberal fetishisation of a singular “African American experience”, but equally examining Monk’s own motivations and insecurities.

To that end we see a lot of Monk’s family life, which divides the film into its stronger satirical and weaker dramatic elements. This has the unfortunate effect of regularly interrupting the laugh-out-loud comedy for some perfectly pleasant if somewhat pedestrian family drama, leaving us waiting for the publishing plot to continue.

But we can see why the domestic elements are there, given Monk’s disdain for one-dimensional stories that flatten their characters. Or it could be there as a joke about pandering to the Academy’s schmaltzy sensibilities, and one which has worked a treat.

In any case, it keeps the film on an even keel where similar satires go off the rails, wisely avoiding the extremities of Bamboozled or Sorry to Bother You. What it lacks in absurdism it makes up for in nuance, the stimulating discussions handled with perfect comic timing by Jeffrey Wright, plus Adam Brody as the producer behind flicks like Plantation Annihilation.

While gentle and uneven, American Fiction is thoughtful in a manner missing from much cultural discussion. As long as you don’t go expecting Network, it succeeds as a clever comedy about compromise, representation, and how nobody is just one thing. Maybe its ultimate joke is to give us the feature that liberals want.