Completely Bonkers: Sorry to Bother You Delivers

Movie Reviewed: Sorry To Bother You

Director: Boots Riley

Date: 23 May 2020

jamesintexas Rating: ***

On Hulu

Bonkers is not a word that I get to use very often.  Boots Riley's film Sorry to Bother You is bonkers, jarring, and completely unique in its dark comedy set in contemporary but alternate reality Oakland.  Cassius Green (LaKeith Stanfield) lives in his uncle's garage, loves his sign-twirling struggling artist girlfriend Troit (Tessa Thompson), and follows best friend Salvador (Jermaine Fowler) into telemarketing call center job where he discovers a previously unknown talent.  "Just use your white voice," old head Danny Glover tells him, after announcing that he's "too old for this shit," and when Cassius does, he finds that his David Cross mimicry leads him to become a vaunted Power Caller in the company, headed to corporate ascension and unlimited success.  However, as this is a science fiction fantasy of sorts, this Oakland consists of a mysterious company offering lifetime employment and housing for workers, and Cassius soon finds his initiation into the upper levels of the call center hinge upon that sort of capitalistic greed and oppression of workers.  He finds himself clashing with Troit and his friends as he takes on more and more responsibility and rises in status.  A co-worker Squeeze (Steven Yuen) reaches out about organizing for workers' rights within the company, and though Cassius goes along, he quickly finds himself at odds with his friends.  Hovering in the background is CEO Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), an acclaimed corporate architect of great fortunes with shadowy origins and racist undertones who is eager to exploit Cassius.  It is no surprise that Cassius finds himself asked to perform a rap in front of a nearly all-white audience at a party at Lift's house in just one of a series of upsetting scenes.  The film is totally committed to its completely unique vision, and instead of going off the rails, it just surprises and surprises, which is different. 

Riley's work here takes turns that are deeply unsettling.  He employs a strong sense of humor into the proceedings with Stanfield and Fowler's compliment-off being one highlight for sure.  Thompson has many great moments, especially in a brutal art gallery scene.  The cast is very strong, and the visual style employed drops Cassius into scenes with his call receivers, sometimes even fading the walls of scenes out and in like Michel Gondry in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, another surreal, jarring film.  Stanfield and Thompson have great chemistry and ease with each other and the story, and the sharpness of the film shows up in the second half as more secrets unfold leading to increasing darkness and intensity.  It is fun to drop your jaw and be very unsure of where a film is going.  Riley steers his film ably through to the end, sticking with his conceit through and through, though I cannot say that I want to see this film again any time soon.  Like BlacKKKlansman, which came out the same year, Sorry to Bother You's skewering of race and class are cogent and timely, and if the voices used took me out of it a bit, that is a small criticism.  Overall, Riley's vision and confident storytelling build and build, and Sorry to Bother You is a powerful debut from a new voice in film.