In his fantastic essay, “Why I Am
Hopeful” for Filmmaker Magazine, writer and film festival programmer Eric
Allen Hatch reflects on the growing divide between independent cinema and the
art house pipeline that churns out increasingly corporatized product. Hatch
rightly suggests that “indie” film culture has been diluted over the years by
“soft hipster rom-coms, complacent costume dramas, talking-head docs, and
late-career Woody Allen turds” that fill art house theaters at the expense of
all else.
Hatch’s
essay is enraging to read, but as the title suggests, he remains cautiously
optimistic. In his view, the antidote to independent film culture’s stagnation
is an injection of young, fresh, and diverse voices in cinema.
Which brings
us to the outrageous, wholly original, and dementedly weird “Sorry to Bother
You,” from hip-hop artist and activist Boots Riley, making his feature
directorial debut. With a swaggering, anti-establishment, punk rock attitude,
his film has a vision as original and uncompromising as you’re likely to see in
theaters this year.
Fueled by a
righteous anger, Riley’s film is an excoriation of late-stage capitalism and
greed that plays like a fever dream. It’s a film with a lot on its mind,
cramming in Riley’s thoughts on art, commerce, race, and economic inequality; a
second viewing (at the very least) may be required to sort through it all. I’m
still not entirely sure it all completely comes together, but with a film so
jam-packed with provocative ideas, it’s almost inevitable that a few aren’t
going to land.
Set in an
alternate universe Oakland, “Sorry to Bother You” follows Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield, “Get Out”), a young, underemployed black
man desperately trying to make ends meet.
In his quest
for gainful employment, he lands a job as a telemarketer, but struggles until
his co-worker (Danny Glover) advises him that he’ll find more success by
adopting a “white voice” when making calls.
Cassius
tries out the technique, and as the nasally tones voiced by David Cross emerge
from Stanfield’s mouth, customers are suddenly much more receptive to his sales
pitches. With that tool in his pocket, Cassius is soon climbing the corporate
ladder with unprecedented speed, making his way upstairs to rub elbows with his
fellow “power callers.” Meanwhile, his co-worker Squeeze (Steven Yeun) has begun banding together the downstairs workers,
pushing them to unionize and demand more pay.
As Cassius’s
star rises, he catches the eye the company’s coke-snorting CEO Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), who invites him to a debaucherous
party at his mansion in an effort to woo him into joining the upper echelon of
the company, where he’ll be tasked with selling some things people most
definitely shouldn’t be selling.
Cassius’s
performance artist girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson, sporting a series of
boldly confrontational earrings — “Murder MurderMurder, Kill KillKill” being one of the more eye-catching slogans) makes it
clear she disapproves of his actions, though she’s not above doing her own
version of the “white voice” to attract more attention to her art.
What starts
as a riff on the concept of code-switching, inspired by Riley’s own experiences
in telemarketing, spirals off into weirder and weirder territory, and the
narrative embraces absurdity with increasingly reckless abandon.
Riley’s script considers how “selling out” has entirely different, painful
connotations for African-Americans if they choose to give in to a socioeconomic
system that has, throughout history, quite literally made money off their bodies.
Influenced
equally by the revolutionary cinema of the 60’s and 80’s-era stoner comedies,
Riley’s film calls to mind everything from Robert Downey Sr.’s 1969
anti-corporate satire “Putney Swope” to “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,”
in addition to the work Spike Lee and Charlie Kaufman.
Riley fills
his movie with some delightful visual gags, like the way he makes the intrusion
of telemarketing entirely literal, showing Cassius’s desk dropping from the sky
and crashing into the homes of the people he’s calling. There’s a bit of Michel
Gondry to the film’s rough-around-the-edges
aesthetic, and as if acknowledging the debt he owes, Riley incorporates a
hilarious late-film nod to that director’s work.
“Sorry to
Bother You” is only the first feature for Boots Riley, and I can’t wait to see
where he goes next. Sprawling and messy, thrillingly ambitious and bursting
with ideas, this is truly independent cinema in support of a bold, utterly
original vision. Even if the film sometimes overreaches, I can forgive the
occasional clumsiness of a first-time filmmaker if it means getting more movies
as vital, passionate, funny, and thoughtful as this one.
This article appears in Jul 18-24, 2018.
