Sorry to Bother You
Original post date: 8 January 2019
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
I always know seeing a movie has been worthwhile when I find myself telling people that the less they know about it beforehand the better their experience will be. Of course, that also makes it a bit tricky to review. Sorry to Bother You is one of those gems that keeps you guessing from scene to scene where exactly it is going and what exactly its game is or even how to classify it genre-wise. Is it a satirical comedy? Is it a Capra-esque tale of a man against the system? Is it a political statement? Or is it all of the above? Or maybe rapper/activist Boots Riley, who wrote and directed, has something else in mind altogether? The set-up is that our everyman hero Cassius Green (character names have been chosen with a fair amount of knowing wit) is keen to find a job and maybe stop living in the garage of his uncle’s house in Oakland, California. He is welcomed with open arms by a telemarketing company but finds phone sales challenging until senior co-worker Langston (a genial Danny Glover) lets him in on a little secret. As Cassius’s career prospects improve, he finds himself juggling work with his love life with avant-garde artist Detroit (her parents wanted her to have an American name, she says) and also a growing union organizing-effort at the company. In some ways the film is reminiscent of Jordan Peele’s Get Out in its treatment of the disorientation of African-American assimilation into a majority-white society. It also has echoes of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil in its evocation of the soullessness of corporate culture and the system’s determination to crush the human spirit. As Cassius, Lakeith Stanfield (of the TV series Atlanta and who was memorable as the hapless Andre in Get Out) exudes such sincerity and honesty that we cannot help but root for him even when we might worry about some of his choices. At times he is nearly Richard Pryor-like in his wide-eyed astonishment at the situations in which he finds himself. As the slick-talking union organizer Squeeze, Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) keeps us guessing about his intentions. (Actually, that may be just me, given my own long-ago union organizing experience.) Armie Hammer shows up (and impresses) as the high-powered CEO of a creepily omnipresent company called WorryFree. If there is any letdown to this nicely executed little flick, it is that the eventual moral to the story is a bit modern-liberal-doctrinaire rather than truly subversive. Still, the movie is good enough up to then that it earns to the right to shout whatever slogan it likes.
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
I always know seeing a movie has been worthwhile when I find myself telling people that the less they know about it beforehand the better their experience will be. Of course, that also makes it a bit tricky to review. Sorry to Bother You is one of those gems that keeps you guessing from scene to scene where exactly it is going and what exactly its game is or even how to classify it genre-wise. Is it a satirical comedy? Is it a Capra-esque tale of a man against the system? Is it a political statement? Or is it all of the above? Or maybe rapper/activist Boots Riley, who wrote and directed, has something else in mind altogether? The set-up is that our everyman hero Cassius Green (character names have been chosen with a fair amount of knowing wit) is keen to find a job and maybe stop living in the garage of his uncle’s house in Oakland, California. He is welcomed with open arms by a telemarketing company but finds phone sales challenging until senior co-worker Langston (a genial Danny Glover) lets him in on a little secret. As Cassius’s career prospects improve, he finds himself juggling work with his love life with avant-garde artist Detroit (her parents wanted her to have an American name, she says) and also a growing union organizing-effort at the company. In some ways the film is reminiscent of Jordan Peele’s Get Out in its treatment of the disorientation of African-American assimilation into a majority-white society. It also has echoes of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil in its evocation of the soullessness of corporate culture and the system’s determination to crush the human spirit. As Cassius, Lakeith Stanfield (of the TV series Atlanta and who was memorable as the hapless Andre in Get Out) exudes such sincerity and honesty that we cannot help but root for him even when we might worry about some of his choices. At times he is nearly Richard Pryor-like in his wide-eyed astonishment at the situations in which he finds himself. As the slick-talking union organizer Squeeze, Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) keeps us guessing about his intentions. (Actually, that may be just me, given my own long-ago union organizing experience.) Armie Hammer shows up (and impresses) as the high-powered CEO of a creepily omnipresent company called WorryFree. If there is any letdown to this nicely executed little flick, it is that the eventual moral to the story is a bit modern-liberal-doctrinaire rather than truly subversive. Still, the movie is good enough up to then that it earns to the right to shout whatever slogan it likes.
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