Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, Erasure, contains multitudes: It’s an incisive character study of a Black novelist facing crises in his professional and family life, a scathing takedown of the publishing industry, and a brilliant examination of how American popular culture propagates racial stereotypes. It’s also an ambitiously postmodern text, flashing forward and backward, spinning up fantasy sequences, and even inserting the text of a dense academic paper and 10 chapters of its protagonist’s novel. A new film adaptation, written and directed by Watchmen’s Cord Jefferson, smooths out the novel’s more experimental edges to deliver a deeply affecting story of family and identity. Its stellar cast includes Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, and Issa Rae, and it’s at theaters nationwide starting Dec. 22.

In the book, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a Los Angeles–based author and academic, is finding no takers for his latest difficult manuscript: “a novel in which Aristophanes and Euripides kill a younger, more talented dramatist, then contemplate the death of metaphysics.” After the 17th rejection, his agent tells him, “The line is, you’re not black enough.” At the top of the bestseller lists is Black novelist Juanita Mae Jenkins’ We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, whose opening line reads, “My fahvre be gone since time I’s borned and it be just me an’ my momma an’ my baby brover Juneboy.” Its success nauseates Monk, who calls the book “a real slap in the face. It was like strolling through an antique mall, feeling good, liking the sunny day and then turning the corner to find a display of watermelon-eating, banjo-playing darkie carvings and a pyramid of Mammy cookie jars.”

It inspires Monk to write a cuttingly satirical novel of his own, under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh, about a young man in the inner city, Van Go Jenkins, who murders a Korean grocer and flees police in a chase scene involving 20 cop cars. Monk spitefully tells his agent to submit the book, initially titled My Pafology, to publishers—and it instantly finds an enthusiastic buyer, as well as movie studio interest. Things get even more complicated when the book is considered for a literary prize—and Monk is one of the judges.

Meanwhile, Monk is also dealing with upheavals in his personal life. His elderly mother, who lives in Washington, D.C., is showing early signs of dementia, which is a burden on his doctor sister, Lisa, who lives nearby; when Lisa dies suddenly, responsibility for their mother’s care falls on Monk and his unreliable brother, Bill, an Arizona-based plastic surgeon. They take their mom to the family’s beach house in Maryland, where Monk kindles a romantic relationship with an attractive neighbor, Marilyn Tilman.

The novel also addresses Monk’s relationship with his father, who committed suicide; Bill’s struggles coming out as gay; and even petty squabbles in Monk’s academic career.  Occasionally, there are imagined, thematically relevant conversations between writers and artists—one is between philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Derrida, for instance, and another features painters Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. It’s a kaleidoscopic reading experience that poses difficulties for anyone looking to adapt it for the screen.

Fortunately, Jefferson is more than up to the challenge. He prunes some of Everett’s wilder flights of fancy—goodbye, Rothko—and focuses on the emotional core of the story: Monk’s relationship with his family in the here and now. It’s a solid choice, and one that plays to the considerable strengths of his cast. Wright plays Monk as a curmudgeon, of course, but also as a deeply committed artist. It’s a subtle, reserved performance, but one that powerfully shows Monk’s pain, and his yearning for emotional connection. Brown offers a convincing portrayal of a self-involved sibling, but Bill is no mere caricature; a late monologue reveals the character’s hidden depths and surprising empathy. Tracee Ellis Ross and Erika Alexander, as Lisa and Marilyn, respectively, make the most of their brief appearances onscreen with vibrant and thoughtful performances; Leslie Uggams shines as Monk’s ill mother. Jefferson also makes Jenkins, the author of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, a far more important character in the film; Everett’s book effectively dismisses her as a hack, but the film delves into her motivations with impressive insight, helped along by Rae’s tough-minded portrayal.

The movie isn’t without its surreal moments; at one point, for instance, Monk briefly imagines a scene from My Pafology and interacts with his characters, and the end of the film heads bravely into dizzying metafictional territory that even Everett didn’t attempt. For the most part, though, the film straightforwardly tackles its heavy themes of family and identity with warm scenes of people talking, listening, and trying to connect. It’s a simple but bold strategy, and one that results in one of the best films of the year.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.