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| photo courtesy of teaser-trailer.com |
Rapper Boots Riley wrote
and directed the satirical comedy Sorry
to Bother You. The movie stars Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out, Atlanta) as
Cassius “Cash” Green, a man struggling to provide for himself. After he lands a
job as a telemarketer, Cassius finds unprecedented success using his “white
voice” to land sales. The technique soon places Cassius in a glamorous and
horrifying world—a world that tests his relationships with the people he loves
the most.
I’ll tell you one thing
up front. You haven’t seen anything like Sorry
to Bother You in a while. It’s the product of a visionary imagination,
bringing all manner of (R-rated) oddities and hilarities to life in vibrant detail. It’s
profoundly strange in nearly every aspect, from the clever visual tricks that
animate the frame to the deep-rooted symbolism that eventually ruptures out
into the real world in bizarre and alarming ways. And it’s also a sharp-edged
satire, complete with critiques of real-world systems and institutions.
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| photo courtesy of observer.com |
The world of Sorry to Bother You isn’t
photorealistic; it’s at most realism-adjacent. When Green’s promotion earns him
more cash to buy nicer things, we don’t see a montage of him signing a lease
for a new place, buying a car, settling down. Instead, we watch as the objects
around him (TV, lamp, decorations) literally crack, fall apart, and give way to
newer, better versions of themselves. Tessa Thompson’s character, who
essentially serves as the film’s moral compass, isn’t just an offbeat freethinker—she’s
a larger-than-life personification of her ideals. Everything she is, she is to
the max. The “white voice” at the center of the plot is an actual white voice, dubbed over black
actors without any pretense of believability. And, most significantly, the entire film doubles-down and descends into a surprising, surreal, and generally nightmarish third act. Decisions such as these contribute to the
movie's lively, distinctive personality.
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| photo courtesy of youtube.com |
But whether that
personality comes off as charming or off-putting will probably be up to the
individual audience member. Movie-lovers and fans of unconventional
storytelling will go along for the ride, but those who expect a more
straightforward comedy—or even just a slightly off-kilter comedy—might get a lot more than they bargained for when the third act rolls around. Make no mistake: Sorry to Bother You goes exactly where it wants to go, and it
doesn’t stop to make sure you’re still comfortable in the meantime.
In the same vein, it
ought to be noted that the movie’s take no prisoners attitude will likely limit
its success on the metaphorical level. Sorry
to Bother You is, at its heart, a passionate critique of capitalism,
complacency, and complicity, but the sheer oddity of the story may reduce the
impact of the message on some audience members—especially those who disagree
with it to begin with.
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| photo courtesy of miaminewtimes.com |
Lakeith Stanfield leads
the cast as Cassius Green (Get it? Get it? Cash-is-green). Cassius is a
well-imagined character, and Stanfield’s slightly hunchbacked presence makes a
perfect match for Cassius’s sympathetic-yet-spineless character. He provides
the exception to the rule: surrounded by an otherwise unreal world, his speech,
mannerisms, and temperment feel remarkably authentic. Other notable
performances include Thompson (as Detroit, Cash’s free-spirited girlfriend) and
Steven Yeun (as Squeeze, a union-organizer for the telemarketers).
FINAL VERDICT: Bold, bizarre,
and undoubtedly baffling for some, Sorry
to Bother You is an exciting experiment in filmmaking.
TRAILER
Watch the trailer here.
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| photo courtesy of bostonherald.com |
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