Review: The Crazy Social Comedy That Is 'Sorry to Bother You'
This review was originally published on UW Film Club, but has since been reuploaded here with the author’s permission.
This film was screened at the 44th Seattle International Film Festival. The film is now in wide release in Seattle.
As our society seemingly becomes crazier and crazier, it takes an even crazier film to encapsulate it all. Stepping up to the plate to do just that is Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You. Hailing from the music industry, Riley is making his feature debut with a comedy that wants to put a mirror up to the society we live in and make us question if the world on screen is that different from our own. The result is broad social commentary piece that wants to commentate on many social issues, and while it doesn’t reach the clarity it wants to, it does make for a wild ride.
Taking place in a distant dystopian version of Oakland, the film follows Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), a down on his luck, late twenty year old who is struggling to find a job and pay rent. When he lands a job at a call center, he continues to struggle until he taps into his ‘white voice’ and rises through the ranks to becomes a power caller. As he ascends, Cassius finds himself questioning his own morals as he chooses between standing by his principles to help those at the bottom or joining the elite for self-benefit.
Joining Stanfield is a commendable all star cast that help play both sides of the fence in Cassius’ moral dilemma. On one side you have Detriot and Squeeze. The former played by Tessa Thompson who is Cassius’ girlfriend and main moral objector while the latter is Cassius’ former co-worker leading a union protest played by Steven Yeun. On the other side you have Steve Lift, a drug fueled billionaire played by Armie Hammer who is enticing Cassius’ with riches to bring his power caller talents on a new venture. To the film’s benefit, the supporting cast plays a major role in depicting the nuances and motivations in Cassius’ actions and help develop the moral compass and messages within the film.
Sorry to Bother You covers a spectrum of social ailments, but never dives deep on any particular issue. Instead, the film paints a broad picture of society where anything and everything is heightened, hyperbolized, and exaggerated to reflect society as it currently stands. When you see absurd television shows that ask you to kick the ‘shit’ out of people, a ‘worry-free’ job that locks you into a life time of service, or a power callers profiting off of weapon sales, you’ll get a sense of how out of hand society feels. The film likes to offer a variety of individual statements that provide brief commentary on any given issue ranging from race relations and labor practices to capitalism and colonialism, but in doing so it can feel unfocused in the name of being all encompassing. It has a lot to say and no concise way of saying it, and that can be problematic.
But the film is nothing short of unique. Everything has a sense of style from the wide and varied characters to the visual techniques at play. The aforementioned capitalism run amuck is often critiqued using a variety of stylized choices such as Cassius dropping into the real life homes of clients when he calls them, the close ups of Detroit’s interchangeable earrings that have punchy subtext, and an ending that is so crazy you’ll be doing double takes. And that’s what makes Sorry to Bother You so memorable: how outlandish it can be. For all the inconsistencies it may have with its message, it makes up for with how holistically committed it is to its style. While it does stumble, it continues to shine a light on society with humor, satire, and swagger that is commendable to say the least.
Sorry to Bother You tackles an array of social issues such race, labor, colonialism, capitalism, and inequality in a science fiction comedy package. The result is a very clever film that often spreads itself too thin, but paints a hyperbolized version of society as a whole that underscores the injustice in our own. The film’s broad strokes can leave it feeling unfocused and mirky especially by the end when the film gets progressively weirder and weirder, but I can say I enjoyed the social reflection of it all.