Most timeless science-fiction movies, no matter how far detached they seem from our mundane existence, reflect the contemporary world. The original “Star Wars,” for instance, was loosely inspired by the Vietnam War with its tale of a seemingly ill-equipped rebellion fighting a sprawling empire, and John Carpenter’s masterpiece, “They Live,” uses aliens slowly destroying the Earth for their own profit as a damning allegory for America’s one-percent. This is why “Sorry to Bother You’s” surrealist, darkly comic reimagining of modern-day Silicon Valley feels so grounded in reality and leaves you feeling as if the real world is in fact dystopian.
Directed and written by Coup frontman Boots Riley, the film centers on Cassius “Cash” Green, a young black man who lives in his uncle’s garage and struggles to come up with enough rent money. Desperate for work, Cash finds a job as a telemarketer and becomes remarkably successful upon replacing his natural voice for a “white” counterpart voiced hilariously by David Cross, whom his customers clearly prefer. The first of many bleak lessons the film teaches is that this is, despite its obviously evil implications, a white man’s world, and the only way Cash can find upward mobility is by abandoning himself and alienating the ones he loves in pursuit of honorary whiteness, so to speak.
His success soon thrusts him into a world of obscene wealth and splendor, revealing that Riley’s critique of racism exists within a broader condemnation of a capitalist economy, which profits off of it and allows it to exist. A telltale sign of a great story is that its characters reflect different aspects of the central themes, and this portrayal of 21st century capitalism is best reflected in the character of Steve Lift, portrayed by Omari Hardwick and Armie Hammer, respectively. The former resembles an older, wealthier Cassius — he’s a wealthy black telemarketer who almost never abandons his Patton Oswalt-dubbed “white voice” — who has long ago made peace with his profit coming from exploitation and suffering. Lift is the CEO of WorryFree, a company offering free food and lodging in exchange for a lifetime of labor, and an absurdist stand-in for Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk and their contempt for the working class.
This is all bleak stuff, and Riley is an appropriately cynical filmmaker. “Sorry To Bother You” depicts politicians, regardless of party, as complacent in perpetuating the neoliberal hell they control and the masses as pacified by entertainment like the morbid slapstick game-show, “I Got the Shit Kicked Out of Me!” This isn’t to say, however, that Riley is without hope or ideas. For starters, the movie emphasizes collective organizing via unions and protests, reflecting a country whose exploited masses are slowly but surely coming around to left-wing thought and nicely complimenting the rise of Democratic Socialists of America and podcast “Chapo Trap House.” All of these things and more that I won’t spoil make “Sorry to Bother You” one of the first of hopefully many great anti-capitalist films of our century.
Andrew Kilbride, a Staff Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at AKilbride21@wooster.edu.