☆☆☆½
Maybe the problem with things, one of the characters in Sorry to Bother You says toward the end of its wild, weird story, is that when a problem is so big it doesn't have a solution, people respond by getting used to it.
It's a sobering moment in a film that is mostly drunk on its own possibility, and it says as much about the world we live in as it does about the world in which it takes place, a world that looks a lot like our own but with some minor variations that first appear on the edges of the frame before they start to take over.
Lakeith Stanfield stars as Cassius Green, who in the opening scene worries aloud to his girlfriend that maybe his life hasn't amounted to much. She's an artist named Detroit (played by Tessa Thompson), which means she gets to express herself, something Cash can't do at all -- he can't even afford to put a gallon of gas in his beat-up car. He winds up taking a job at a telemarketing company, where one of his co-workers (Danny Glover) reveals the secret of success: a "white voice." Turns out, that's something Cash can do well ... eerily well. He starts out selling encyclopedias, but before long he has his eye set on becoming a "Power Caller," one of the elite who make a fortune selling -- well, hm, no one knows exactly what.
But lurking everywhere are advertisements for the ubiquitous Worry Free company, which has taken over just about every aspect of life. It's the TV we watch, it's the way we live, it's the stuff we buy, and it's always looking for new workers. The head of Worry Free is Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), who combines capitalism and self-help in a way that appeals to the downwardly mobile, which in the world of Sorry to Bother You is just about everyone.
Some of Cash's co-workers want to organize a union (this might be the first movie in a few decades to name-check Norma Rae), while Detroit is part of a militant group called Left Eye that opposes Worry Free, and just about the time it's finally dawning on the audience that Sorry to Bother You is not merely a satire about working life, the movie takes a sharp turn into completely uncharted territory.
Well, maybe not completely uncharted, because there are echoes of the paranoid thrillers that were in vogue the last time America had a seriously hard time trusting its government to do the right thing, which makes Sorry to Bother You a real surprise in the way it shines a spotlight on subjects like our willingness to trust just a few companies with almost everything we have, own and do; and the way we'll settle for the illusion of protest rather than the real thing.
There's a lot more going on in Sorry to Bother You: race relations, media saturation, the politicization of technology and music, our fascination with the material -- keeping up with it all can be exhausting. Writer-director Boots Riley, who's also a hip-hop musician, wants to get it all out there, which is the core frustration of his frequently striking, often flat-out hilarious, movie, which might have benefitted from cutting out a few key scenes that on their own are worthwhile but diminish the movie's overall effectiveness and dull what should be a razor-sharp sense of satire.
At times, too, Sorry to Bother You also feels just a little too close to last year's Get Out both in tone and in some major plot points, particularly the way both movies use a whacked-out videotape playing in the basement of a mansion to present the bizarre, broader conspiracies at their core. (If you thought the one in Get Out was weird, wait until you see this one.)
And yet, there is so much that is good about Sorry to Bother You, so much that will appeal to fans of The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, and it's combined with such a streak of good humor and charm, that it's easier to gloss over the faults than to let them linger.
At one point, Cash finds himself trapped and looking out on a scene of violent overthrow that's so damned weird -- and also manages to make sense in the context of the film (though it would seem ludicrous if I tried to explain it now) -- that Sorry to Bother You seems something of a miracle. What it presents on screen is so outrageous, and so far from the film's benign opening scene, that when you think about how much audacity it took Riley and his performers to pull it all off, it's a little mind-blowing.
Viewed July 7, 2018 -- ArcLight Hollywood
1230
It's a sobering moment in a film that is mostly drunk on its own possibility, and it says as much about the world we live in as it does about the world in which it takes place, a world that looks a lot like our own but with some minor variations that first appear on the edges of the frame before they start to take over.
Lakeith Stanfield stars as Cassius Green, who in the opening scene worries aloud to his girlfriend that maybe his life hasn't amounted to much. She's an artist named Detroit (played by Tessa Thompson), which means she gets to express herself, something Cash can't do at all -- he can't even afford to put a gallon of gas in his beat-up car. He winds up taking a job at a telemarketing company, where one of his co-workers (Danny Glover) reveals the secret of success: a "white voice." Turns out, that's something Cash can do well ... eerily well. He starts out selling encyclopedias, but before long he has his eye set on becoming a "Power Caller," one of the elite who make a fortune selling -- well, hm, no one knows exactly what.
But lurking everywhere are advertisements for the ubiquitous Worry Free company, which has taken over just about every aspect of life. It's the TV we watch, it's the way we live, it's the stuff we buy, and it's always looking for new workers. The head of Worry Free is Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), who combines capitalism and self-help in a way that appeals to the downwardly mobile, which in the world of Sorry to Bother You is just about everyone.
Some of Cash's co-workers want to organize a union (this might be the first movie in a few decades to name-check Norma Rae), while Detroit is part of a militant group called Left Eye that opposes Worry Free, and just about the time it's finally dawning on the audience that Sorry to Bother You is not merely a satire about working life, the movie takes a sharp turn into completely uncharted territory.
Well, maybe not completely uncharted, because there are echoes of the paranoid thrillers that were in vogue the last time America had a seriously hard time trusting its government to do the right thing, which makes Sorry to Bother You a real surprise in the way it shines a spotlight on subjects like our willingness to trust just a few companies with almost everything we have, own and do; and the way we'll settle for the illusion of protest rather than the real thing.
There's a lot more going on in Sorry to Bother You: race relations, media saturation, the politicization of technology and music, our fascination with the material -- keeping up with it all can be exhausting. Writer-director Boots Riley, who's also a hip-hop musician, wants to get it all out there, which is the core frustration of his frequently striking, often flat-out hilarious, movie, which might have benefitted from cutting out a few key scenes that on their own are worthwhile but diminish the movie's overall effectiveness and dull what should be a razor-sharp sense of satire.
At times, too, Sorry to Bother You also feels just a little too close to last year's Get Out both in tone and in some major plot points, particularly the way both movies use a whacked-out videotape playing in the basement of a mansion to present the bizarre, broader conspiracies at their core. (If you thought the one in Get Out was weird, wait until you see this one.)
And yet, there is so much that is good about Sorry to Bother You, so much that will appeal to fans of The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, and it's combined with such a streak of good humor and charm, that it's easier to gloss over the faults than to let them linger.
At one point, Cash finds himself trapped and looking out on a scene of violent overthrow that's so damned weird -- and also manages to make sense in the context of the film (though it would seem ludicrous if I tried to explain it now) -- that Sorry to Bother You seems something of a miracle. What it presents on screen is so outrageous, and so far from the film's benign opening scene, that when you think about how much audacity it took Riley and his performers to pull it all off, it's a little mind-blowing.
Viewed July 7, 2018 -- ArcLight Hollywood
1230
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