Emmy winner Cord Jefferson takes VF inside his directorial debut starring Jeffrey Wright as a Black novelist wrestling with his identity.
and he falls for his public defender neighbor, played by. As the only non-medical doctor amongst his siblings—no, his English PHD doesn’t count—Monk struggles to find common ground with them.
“There is a real poverty of imagination when it comes to people’s perceptions of what Black life looks like,” says Jefferson. “It’s this idea ‘I don't understand. How does this represent Black people if there’s not some misery associated with it?’ I reject that.” Brown in particular pops as Cliff, Monk’s surgeon brother. It’s a surprisingly funny turn that’s a far cry from the steadfast husband Randall on, which won Brown an Emmy. Uggams, too, is both hilarious and heartbreaking as Monk’s mother, Agnes, who’s struggling with dementia. It’s a part of the story that’s particularly personal for the director. Jefferson lost his mother to cancer, and his half brothers lost their biological mother to dementia just last year.
While the film deals with some weighty subjects regarding race and loss, Jefferson’s directorial debut has a breezy quality and humor about it. Some of this is due to’s cinematography which captures the beachy beauty of Martha’s Vineyard, where much of the film takes place. But it’s part of Jefferson’s commitment to his community, too.
“There are no easy answers to these kinds of things.” says Jefferson. “I like that ambiguity.” He wants audiences to simply join him on the ride “It was a conversation that I was having with my friends for literally decades with other black creatives and artists and journalists,” says Jefferson. “It was a conversation that we were all having all the time.”. “This movie is in many ways, in my mind, a love letter to Black Hollywood and to black artists in general,” he says.
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