Seven years ago Glenn Close was strongly fancied to win an Oscar for her lead role in a film about a literary hoax.
However the star of 'The Wife' ended up losing to Olivia Colman in the Best Actress category for 'The Favourite'.
Now another film centred around a literary hoax is in Oscar contention but it takes a much more humourous approach than Bjorn Runge's movie.
Cord Jefferson's 'American Fiction' takes on racial stereotyping in the publishing industry and mercilessly skewers it.
Jeffrey Wright plays Dr Theolonius 'Monk' Ellison, a cantankerous California based author and academic.
When we first see Monk, he gets into a spat with a white student who objects to him scrawling the words "artificial nig**r" on a whiteboard as they prepare to discuss the work of Flannery O'Connor.
Hauled before faculty colleagues afterward, Monk is told to take a break from academia and spend time in his home city in Boston where he has been invited to take part in a literary festival.
The tetchy discussion results in Monk deriding one colleague for writing popular "airport novels".
Arriving in Boston for the festival, Monk is struck by how poor the turnout is for his panel discussion.
The reason is it clashes with an interview with Issa Rae's author Sintara Golden who has published a bestselling book 'We Lives In Da' Ghetto'.
Dropping into her packed conference session, Monk is appalled by the excerpt that is read and the way it panders to stereotypes about the black working class.
Golden is hailed by a largely white audience for providing an authentic African American voice.
After the event Monk links up with his sister, Tracee Ellis Ross's Dr Lisa Ellison and returns to the family home where he is greeted warmly by his mum, Leslie Uggams' Agnes and their live-in housekeeper, Myra Lucretia Taylor's Lorraine.
Agnes, however, is showing early signs of Alzheimer's.
During his stay, Lisa presses her brother to make more of a contribution towards looking after their mum.
When Lisa unexpectedly suffers a fatal heart attack, Monk finds himself with the sole responsibility for looking after Agnes.
Following Lisa's death, he heads to the family beach house with his mum, Lorraine and his estranged brother, Sterling K Brown's plastic surgeon Cliff to scatter his sister's ashes.
Cliff has recently gone through a bitter divorce after his wife caught him in bed with another man.
Now outed, he is fully embracing a gay lifestyle and making up for lost time.
Pleading a lack of resources because of his divorce, Cliff leaves Monk to handle his mum.
While visiting the beach house, Monk runs into Erika Alexander's lawyer Coraline, helping her gather some tomatoes she's dropped on her driveway.
Invites into her home for a glass of wine, they quickly establish a bond and it isn't long before they are dating.
Meanwhile under pressure from his literary agent, John Ortiz's Arthur to deliver a new novel, Monk hits on the idea of parodying popular "African American trauma porn" fiction.
He, therefore, dreams up a gang member story called 'My Pafology' under the pseudonym Stagg R Lee.
Arthur is reluctant to send the manuscript out to publishers but does so after Monk insists.
They're both stunned when major publishing houses lap it up and start to wave big money offers for the rights.
However it becomes clear they believe it could replicate or even eclipse the sales of 'We Lives In Da' Ghetto'.
After negotiating a publishing deal worth $750,000, Arthur comes under pressure to introduce Stagg R Lee to the publishers and Hollywood producer, Adam Brody's Wiley who wants to snap up the movie rights.
This results in Monk having to adopt the fake persona of Stagg R Lee, developing a ridiculous back story that only enhances his reputation as an authentic voice of the African American underclass.
Can Monk successfully juggle the demands of being a publishing sensation with his duties as a boyfriend, son and brother?
And will he be able to maintain the illusion of Stagg R Lee or will his disdain for what he is parodying see him reveal it's all been a hoax?
Adapted by Jefferson from Percival Everett's 2001 comic novel 'Erasure,' 'American Fiction' has a lot of acerbic humour.
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And that is both its strength and weakness.
Many of the gags about racism in the publishing industry, white guilt and white perceptions of African Americans are really funny.
In fact 'American Fiction' is one of the funniest films for some time and boasts some wonderfully written lines.
But the gags so good, everything else pales by comparison.
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The focus on Monk's messy family life and his romance with Coraline amuse but they never quite have the same potency as the razor sharp humour that Jefferson's lampooning of the publishing and movie industries generates.
His satirical depiction of the publishing industry is particularly reminiscent of Robert Altman's acerbic sending up of the Hollywood studio system in 'The Player'.
Although there's a definite Alexander Payne vibe to the film too, particularly in its depiction of Jefferson's bourgeois characters.
It is these qualities that nevertheless make 'American Fiction' stand out from the pack and a rewarding watch.
Not only is the movie well written but it announces Jefferson as a writer-director of considerable talent who knows how to construct a telling image
Some shots conjured up with the film's cinematographer Cristina Dunlap are exquisitely staged such as a beautiful shot from the rear view seat of Monk's car of him and Cliff talking, framed by the boot.
Dunlap delivers a handsomely shot movie, with Jefferson and film editor Hilda Rasula maintaining a consistent pace that never flags and allows the cast to play to their strengths
The performances are uniformly excellent, with Wright and Brown thoroughly justifying their Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations.
Wright is on top form as the cantankerous academic and writer at the heart of the film.
Monk's rage often gets the better of him until he turns it to his advantage.
But you can't help feeling when he is on top, it will get the better of him again.
The role enables Wright to demonstrate comic chops we have rarely seen before, by playing everything straight.
He gels really well with his colleagues, with Alexander making a delightful romantic foil.
Brown amuses as a gay man going wild after breaking free of his marriage.
Ross, Uggams, Taylor and Raymond Anthony Thomas as Lorraine's longtime crush Maynard bring heart to proceedings.
Ortiz and Rae are fun as Monk's literary agent and his literary nemesis.
© Orion Pictures, Amazon MGM StudiosKeith David and Okieriete Onaodowan also appear in a wickedly funny scene as Willy The Wonker and Van Go Jenkins, two characters in 'My Pafology" while Monk is writing his satire in the study of his family home.
While there is clearly an imbalance in the humour of the film, it is still an intelligent and entertaining watch.
It's hard to resist a film that isn't afraid to say white people "think they want the truth (about the African American experience).. They don't. They just want to be absolved."
Its jokes come with a real jag but they also throw down a challenge to white audiences and movie executives to broaden their minds and allow a range of voices across different sections of society to tell their stories.
We'll see if the industry heeds that call.
('American Fiction' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on February 2, 2024)
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