I’m even sure where to start with this one. But for anyone who has been living under a rock the past several months, Sorry To Bother You made a splash at the festival circuit, and the word on it has been building and building until it finally got a release. It’s the debut from writer/director, Boots Riley, who was previously known for his work as a rap artist with groups like The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. Fun fact – back in 2012, he didn’t have the funds to make his screenplay into a film, so The Coup instead made an album inspired by the script.
The film revolves around Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), a guy who’s down on his luck and in need of a job. Luckily, the folks at RegalVew Telemarketing doesn’t require much qualifications, so he gets the job. He finds out that doing a “white voice” will actually get his clients to talk, and his career begins to skyrocket, giving him new opportunities in the company, especially when he meets Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), the CEO of a strange company called WorryFree. And things only get stranger from there.
If it sounds like I’m hiding things, it’s because I am. This is one of those movies that is best experienced not knowing anything going into it. Much has been said about the utter insanity of the various twists and turns that the movie takes, and it’s all true. There are comparisons to be made to the works of Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, and maybe even a touch of Alejandro Jodorowsky, but what this movie brings is a distinctly black American perspective, which doesn’t often the platform to be explored in surreal, absurdist ways, especially in the mainstream. The vibe of the film is so unique to this, which is accentuated by the Oakland setting, which has one foot in reality and the other in the funhouse mirror version of Oakland.
If the film was just an exercise is absurdist filmmaking, that would be enough to be considered great, but what pushes it over-the-top is that it’s a film that is full of ideas and commentary that it wants to explore. And it’s a fairly wide variety of topics too. The film goes from tackling the trajectory of social media notoriety, to the ways black people are pressured to assimilate into white spaces, to capitalist exploitation, to working class anxieties, complete with the an emphasis put on the importance of unionizing. It’s a film that is loaded with imagery layered upon each other. So much detail is placed in the film that I don’t believe for a second that I was able to catch everything. This is the kind of movie that’s going to inspire so many college dissertations for years to come.
Another great thing about the film is the casting. Lakeith Stanfield has always been a highlight in everything he’s been in from Atlanta to Get Out. His neurotic tics and instantly endearing charm separates him from so many of his peers. And he proves with this that he can effortlessly carry a film on his shoulders. Of course, it also helps that he is working with an incredible supporting cast. The always excellent Tessa Thompson plays his Cassius’ girlfriend, Detroit. She’s an artist, and there are a number of great moments with her. I love the touch of the film pointing out her various outrageous earrings during the course of the film. Armie Hammer is wonderful as the constantly-coked-out-of-his-mind CEO, Steven Yeun is great as a RegalView employee determined to get a union going, Omari Hardwick makes a big impression as a mysterious power caller at RegalView. Plus, with the addition of David Cross and Patton Oswalt as the white voices is endlessly delightful.
If there are any flaws that stuck out, it might only be the fact that I found the pacing to be oddly slow for something so eccentric. It’s not quite as propulsive as I would’ve wanted. But beside that, I was thoroughly impressed with Sorry To Bother You, not just as a debut feature, but as a wholly singular expression of an artist reflecting on the insanity of the times we currently live in. It’s such a breath of fresh air compared to so much that is out right now. It’s a film I would recommend everyone seeing, not necessarily because you’re guaranteed to like it, but what I can assure you is that it will spark some very interesting conversations.