Crazy, Brilliant, Awkward, Strange: "Sorry To Bother You" Is ... A Lot

Sorry To Bother You
directed by Boots Riley
starring LaKeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Omari Hardwick, Danny Glover, Terry Crews, Armie Hammer, Jermaine Fowler

People of color are having something of a moment in the filmmaking arena. Further, Oakland-based actors, filmmakers and locations are experiencing a comeup. So I was chomping at the bit to see Sorry To Bother You. (That metaphor will be more apt once you see the film for yourself.) I was left feeling that this movie, for all of its groundbreaking story, visual virtuosity, unique characters, and cultural commentary, may have bitten off more than it can chew. This could have made a really interesting cable series, much like "Atlanta," in which star LaKeith Stanfield also appears. Sorry To Bother You is overstuffed with potent observances, visual jokes, surrealist setups, witty dialog, awkward humor, and jaw-dropping reveals. Honestly, I wasn't really ready. It's ... a lot. A LOT.

This first feature from Oakland writer, musician, and director Boots Riley is an absurdist, surreal meditation on capitalism, racism, classism, corporate greed, art as political commentary, media, technology, civil disobedience, black culture, and moral integrity. At least, these are the myriad ideas this mind blower of a film touches on at breakneck speed. Riley takes the time-honored plot about an everyman who makes something of a Faustian bargain and twists expectations, especially with the main character of Cassius Green, played by nerd savant LaKeith Stanfield. (Apparently some of Stanfield's eccentricities are not just on screen, according to a profile in the New York Times).

Here's a basic synopsis, but I'll let other reviewers attempt to explain the final third of the flick:

Mild-mannered Cassius lives in his uncle's garage, drives an ancient, patched-together economy car, and needs a job to catch up on rent. His free-form, woke girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) twirls signs and creates performance art on street corners for a living. Desperate for a job, Cassius bullshits his way into a miserable telemarketing sales gig. When his uncle Sergio (Terry Crews with hair) is threatened with losing their home, Cassius decides to take the advice of a fellow phone-room veteran, played by a gleefully loose Danny Glover, and soon becomes a sales star who is promoted to the lofty penthouse area where "power callers" make megabucks deals. And in a surreal visual delight, with every call, we see Cassius, his desk and headset land from the ceiling with a bang into the habitat of his customers -- in their kitchens, while they're on the toilet, while making love, into their office, while smoking a joint.

His secret, as anyone who has seen the trailers knows, is to use his "white voice" on the calls. This is really no secret to people of color working within the confines of corporate America, who often find themselves code-switching in different situations. But Sorry To Bother You takes the concept to its absurdist extreme -- so much so that the "white voices" used by Stanfield and his Power Caller idol, played by Omari Hardwick in an inexplicable bowler, eyepatch and muttonchop sideburns combo, are actually dubbed by white actors.

Our hero (whose whole name is basically "cash is green") is more than willing to fake it to make it, and once he drinks the Kool-Aid of the Power Caller lifestyle, which comes with a hefty paycheck, he doesn't care that he is actually selling slave labor to global corporations. With a hip new apartment and a luxury car, and having saved his uncle's home with a fat wad of green, Cash shrugs off the Upstairs/Downstairs moral quandary when the phone room staff erupts into a full-scale work stoppage to protest low wages and lack of benefits. His "I'm with you in spirit, but this has nothing to do with me" attitude -- not to mention his increasing use of the "white voice" at all times -- drives a wedge between himself and the strikers, most importantly his best friend Salvador (Jermaine Fowler), and worse, his girlfriend Detroit, who is being pursued by Squeeze (John Yeun), the phone room's strike organizer. With Cash and other Power Callers crossing the picket lines with armed escorts every day, Detroit labels Cash a "morally emaciated" scab and bounces. One of the funnier moments of the film is when newly entitled Cassius arrives to work and engages in a rapidly escalating war of compliments with Salvador. It's absurdist humor at its best, when "I hope you have a great year, brother" and "You smell great, what are you wearing?" are challenges as heated and threatening as any game of The Dozens.

Meanwhile, Cash proves so good at his Power Caller game that his mentor Mr. ___ (Hardwick) informs him that he's been summoned to a party at the home of the company's CEO, a douchebag young gun named Steve Lift (Armie Hammer) whose oft-protested Worry Free company is basically a modern-day slave plantation (and I could write another whole essay on this concept). Cash attends the party, which is a cross between every Hollywood-style excess mansion bash and a scene out of "Eyes Wide Shut." Goaded by Lift into rapping for the party, simply because he's black (this scene is awkward and painful, though some will find it funny) Cash is later summoned to Lift's inner sanctum, where Cash inadvertently stumbles across a horrifying scientific experiment, which I won't divulge. Cash is then forced by Lift -- at gunpoint --to consider a multimillion-dollar paycheck to work with this still-developing faction of Lift's empire.

At this point, Sorry To Bother You makes a sharp turn from social satire straight into sci-fi, and it may be a hard leap for some in the audience to make. It's a film where the amusing eccentricities, quirks, and weirdness of the plot finally pile up so high that by the last 20 minutes, Freak Fatigue may set in. For a movie billed as a comedy, somehow the laughs are far and few between; certainly there are hilarious moments, such as the aforementioned compliment war, the Power Callers' elevator gags, and Cash's brief experience in the private room of a local club. There are also several deeply disturbing scenes, as when non-rapper Cash is forced to rap for a party of white folks and resorts to chanting the n-word; when Detroit holds a gallery opening and invites attendees to pelt her near-naked body with sheep's blood, cell phones and bullet casings as a piece of performance art; and several scenes of extreme violence involving a fictional TV reality show and confrontations between the police and striking workers. And then there is that certain ... scientific program.

The visual design and cinematography of the movie are stellar; the framing, explosion of colors, and set design are remarkable. A shot of Cash driving through the neighborhoods on his way to work and to pick up his girlfriend, as well as the club scenes, give us a true sense of the sights and sounds of Oakland. Detroit's candy-colored hair and message earrings, Cash's increasingly dapper suits, the high-five montage of Cash celebrating sales with his phone room supervisor, the crash landings into client's spaces, and the headshot of Cash in the phone room framed against the copyroom window, behind which two employees are confounded by a paper-spewing copier, are just a few of the dazzling visual setups. And the film earns high marks for its soundtrack, with some of the songs provided by director Riley's band.

Sorry To Bother You has to be seen to be believed. Do I encourage you to see it? Yes. Stanfield, with his stooped uncertain posture and expressive eyes, gives a great performance. There is a lot to unpack here about a number of issues. But I wouldn't take young children. It's more of a dystopian cautionary tale than anything else. As with most protagonists in the I-sold-my-soul-but-I-want-it-back plotline, Cassius regains his moral fiber, takes back his power, and goes all out to make things right. But even as a happy ending is dangled before us, full of love and sunshine, the last scenes take a darker twist.

* * * * *

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"Dear White People" (2014)

directed by Justin Simien
starring Tessa Thompson, Tyler James Williams, Teyonah Parris, Kyle Gallner, Brandon P. Bell



Got a chance to view "Dear White People" last month in a theater not far from Georgetown University. It was really good, deceptively simple but very clever. It started kind of slow and a bit detached in tone, with title cards describing this fictional ivy league school, but the flick got progressively stronger and more involving as we learn about the lives of a few of its black students, whose identities are as different from each other as possible.

The lead character is Sam White (the gorgeous Thompson), a bold black rights activist sister trying to assert herself in the world of campus social politics. She hosts a provocative radio show called "Dear White People," where she offers bon mots like, "Dear White People, stop dancing" and "Dear White People, your quota of black friends has just been raised to two." Her story is complicated by the fact that she is a child of a biracial marriage, that her father's compromised health is source of ongoing stress, and by the presence of her white lover, a fellow student. Just as her name suggests, her character is rife with conflicting realities.

Sam's story is contrasted against that of an introverted gay nerd Lionel (Williams, best known as the star of TV's Everybody Hates Chris) who doesn't fit into the "black" residence hall and is systematically humiliated in the "white" residence hall. Wrestling with other students, the college administration and himself to carve out a place where he can just be is a daily challenge for him. There's also a girl named Coco (Parris), who has changed her name among other things because she is desperate to separate herself from all things ghetto and thus chases after white acceptance. Then there's the popular black jock who is trying to live up to the high standards of his father (played by Dennis Haysbert), the college's dean of students, while simultaneously juggling a relationship with the white daughter of the college president and concealing a dependence on marijuana. And though the story takes place in present day, there are lingering pockets of racism on campus, both laughable and deplorable.

The film is more multi-layered than it seems on first viewing; the characters are struggling with finding their identities, managing their relationships within the college arena, and trying to use college as a springboard into who they will be for the rest of their lives. It shows that there is no one way or right way to be black, but even so, people of color instinctively band together to ward off the acts of active and passive racism that still rear their ugly heads on campus. Because college is a concentrated microcosm of the world, all of the action feels very impactful and thought-provoking. Within that are moments of provocative humor and dark satire; finding one's identity in college can mean trying on a number of hats, successfully or unsuccessfully. It can mean overthrowing the expectations of parents, lovers, and society itself. And it can also mean forming destructive habits and alliances.

The revelation of the film for me is, besides Tessa Thompson's fantastic portrayal of Sam, is Tyler James Williams as Lionel Higgins, the campus nerd who finally stands up. DWP has moments of originality, wit, and humor; it also knows on whose shoulders it stands, with a few moments that clearly pay homage to the Spike Lee oeuvre, as when a crowd of black students converge angrily on an unwitting movie ticket seller to protest the relentless showing of Tyler Perry movies, and the movie's climax will recall the moment that Mookie finally threw that trash can in Do The Right Thing. I also appreciated the soundtrack, which utilizes classical music in unique ways alongside contemporary R&B, hip-hop, and rock.

The movie never canonizes the black characters nor demonizes the whites; our identities and consciousness are fluid things and within that murk we must find common ground. It is said that today's young generation of millennials have a broader and more accepting view of race, but there is also a collective naivete and ignorance of history that persists in this generation, leading to more of the kind of outrageous actions and intense confrontations depicted here. Director Simien says he was inspired in part by the proliferation of white campus parties with themes demeaning to African Americans, and we see the evidence of real-life events of this nature in the end credits. The pictures will make you cringe. But Simien also shows that while racism is an American institution, we all can be angels and devils along a continuum of prejudicial behavior.