Showtimes February 2 - 8:

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Jeffrey Wright), Best Supporting Actor (Sterling K. Brown), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Wright) is a novelist who’s fed up with how the establishment profits from “Black” entertainment. At a literary festival in his hometown of Boston, for instance, all eyes seem to be on the first-time author of a bestseller titled We’d Lives in Da Ghetto, a book Monk believes panders to readers seeking stereotypical stories of Black misery. In a fit of spite after the conference, he uses a pen name to write an outlandish “Black” book of his own. But when his agent submits the book, it lands Monk with the biggest advance he’s ever seen and propels him to the heart of the hypocrisy that he claims to disdain.

Adapted from Percival Everett’s novel, Erasure, Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut is a wildly entertaining send up of our hunger for so-called authenticity. Featuring stellar supporting turns from Issa Rae and Erika Alexander, and a string of cheeky cameos, this is a timely reflection on the fictions we tell ourselves about race, progress, and community.

(US / 2023 / Directed by Cord Jefferson)
R / 1 hr 57 mins.