Class and culture collide in ‘Sorry to Bother You’

By Chris Balboni
Reader Contributor 

In the opening scene of Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You,” we meet Cash Green at a job interview for the telemarketing company RegalView. After the interviewer calls him out for making up his credentials, he praises Cash for the effort he put into his deceit and hires him on the spot. This interaction sets the stage both tonally and thematically for the rest of film, which is great, because writing about “Sorry to Bother You” without spoiling the madness that happens midway through is a real challenge.

Lakeith Stanfield in “Sorry to Bother You.” Courtesy Sundance Institute.

“Sorry to Bother You” centers on Cash (Lakeith Stanfield) as he stumbles from being unemployed and living in a loft-style apartment that’s actually his financially destitute uncle’s garage to being a venerated member of RegalView’s telemarketing team after a fellow black team member Langston (Danny Glover) teaches him how to use his “white voice.” Once he does, his sales skyrocket, and upper management takes notice. At the same time, another RegalView employee, Squeeze (Steven Yeun), forms a union to protest RegalView and recruits Cash’s artist/activist girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) in the process. As all of these threads coalesce, Cash grows increasingly aware that RegalView is a facade for something terribly dark.

This all sounds very dire, but “Sorry to Bother You” has more in common with Charlie Kaufman’s work than it does with most independent dramas. It’s comedic and absolutely absurd yet heartfelt and incisive. Cash is sucked into a corporate machine and forced to forfeit his identity just to support himself, all while having to endure his white coworkers’ expectations of racial stereotypes and the sense that his black friends feel he’s sold out his own culture. But Cash is far from a tortured soul — he’s an affable guy, if a bit aloof. Stanfield’s talent in bringing Cash to life is matched only by Thompson’s Detroit, whose struggle to keep Cash attached to his integrity is empowering. Yet Detroit faces her own issues of identity in the art world as a American black woman expressing herself to a largely white, foreign audience. 

It’s a testament to Riley’s skills as a writer/director that “Sorry to Bother You” can weave issues of capitalism and cultural identity together in such a bold, did-that-really-just-happen sort of way, without ever veering into a ham-fisted approach to its topical themes (something several other notable films this year struggled with). It’s also a blast stylistically: There are countless surreal moments that have a dreamlike quality without feeling fantastical, the Oakland setting is dystopian yet beautifully vibrant, and laid over all of it is a soundtrack featuring excellent work by the Tune-Yards and Riley’s own long-running hip-hop band, The Coup. “Sorry to Bother You” is a tour-de-force of originality and reminds us that films can still be profound and wildly entertaining all at once.

2018 Top Five:

1. Sorry to Bother You

2. Annihilation

3. Hereditary

4. Overlord

5. BlackKklansman

Chris Balboni is a filmmaker and photographer working primarily in the Inland Northwest. See his work at www.balbonifilms.com.