Movie Info
Movie Name: Sorry to Bother You
Studio: Significant Productions
Genre(s): Comedy/Drama
Release Date(s): January 10, 2018 (Sundance Film Festival)/July 6, 2018 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
Life is making concessions…
Cassius “Cash” Green (Lakeith Stanfield) needs to turn his life around. His girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) is demanding a change, and Cash just wants to get out of his uncle’s garage. When Cash signs up to work at the telemarketing giant RegalView, he learns a secret from a coworker (Danny Glover)…using a “white voice” will get you sales. As Cash rises through the ranks, he finds his friend Salvador (Jermaine Fowler) and coworker Squeeze (Steven Yeun) are trying to help the workers while Cash sells out…and Cash must “stick to the script”.
Written and directed by Boots Riley, Sorry to Bother You is a comedy satire. The film was released to critical acclaim and positive reviews.
Detroit has style
I wasn’t too impressed with the trailer for Sorry to Bother You, but I heard good things about the movie. As I watched the film, I was heavily reminded of Being John Malkovich which had Spike Jonze turning the absurd into a compelling story. While I was with Sorry to Bother You for a while, I found myself drifting off a bit at the end when the extreme becomes the absurd. A ******spoiler alert****** exists for the rest of the review.
The movie is largely social commentary. You have a character who realizes pretending to be someone else is what society wants him to do. When he does this, the people he hurts are those around him who he further subjects just to get ahead…he wants to play from the sidelines as a non-active voice which doesn’t solve anything. He wants acceptance and is will to sell out to do it (like his rap at the party).
When you realize your “friends” only want a stereotype
The problem I have is when the script goes for a more science-fiction allegory type story by literally having the characters being turned into “work horses” for an Amazon like company known as WorryFree. It takes the message to the extreme, but it also feels more alienating than the previous part of the movie which took an absurdist, but “real” approach to the theme.
Lakeith Stanfield is a good lead as Cash who just wants to have a better life while Tessa Thompson (a sign spinner for a sign store) is constantly bucking the system. David Cross and Lily James provide the “white voices” for Cash and Thompson while Patton Oswalt is the voice of Omari Hardwick’s Mr. ________. Danny Glover and Terry Crews have small roles Steven Yeun plays the union instigator and Armie Hammer is the leader of WorryFree. Forest Whitaker is a horseman and Rosario Dawson is the elevator voice.
Ok…didn’t expect it to go this far…
The movie is smartly edited and looks good. Riley shows a lot of skill in this category and the film almost seems to mock other genre-based films by playing up stereotypes in an almost blaxploitation style that is also anti-blaxploitation at the same time.
Sorry to Bother You is a film worth checking out simply because it is unusual and different. It is a movie that shows you don’t always have to like everything about a movie to still like it (there were definitely parts of Being John Malkovich I didn’t love, but I liked that movie as well). The movie presents a lot of views of our society which is getting more and more like the world of the movie. I look forward to seeing if Boots Riley’s future endeavors and find he could be an interesting new voice in the film world.
