The same can also be said for frontman Boots
Riley's debut as a feature director, "Sorry to Bother You": a film
that features the same brand of controversy, social comment and humour for
which The Coup are known.
Cassius "Cash" Green (Lakeith
Stanfield) is a man without a job and living in his uncle's garage, though he
does have a girlfriend. Desperate for work, he fakes a fabulous career history
for a telemarketing job, naively unaware that the credentials for any low-level
sales caller are irrelevant. Proving he can read English, he is told to
"stick to the script" and start making calls.
But as anyone who has worked in
cold-calling will tell you: it's tough. His failures prompt his booth neighbour
Langston (Danny Glover) to suggest he adopt his "white voice": a voice
projecting the confidence of a person who knows their life and source of income
are successful and secure. Cue hilarity. And also cue Cash's discovery of his
talent for selling, when taking on his "white" persona.
Soon head-hunted to become a "Power
Caller", he is switched from calling Everyday Joes to Big Dick Willies,
selling the manpower services offered by the blatantly sinister WorryFree to
mass production manufacturers, as an alternative to exploitation of Chinese
workforces. But on being invited to the circle of trust, Cash soon finds that
WorryFree is as ironic a name as suggested; and has his moral conviction and
penis size questioned by those close to him.
"Sorry to Bother You" is a film
of ideas: the social comment on the current nature of zero hours contracts and commission payment and how they treat those party to them; the humour
applied in the notion of race as a state of mind when the visual element is
removed; the lush life promised in career progression at the cost of long hours
and one's morality; and social media fame that quickly sees condemners become poster children.
Riley tackles all of these with a
tongue-in-cheek humour that provides the laughs, as well as addressing social
problems with the nature of modern labour forces.
There's a lot going on here. Perhaps, at
times, too much. Some aspects are explored in detail, while others are more readers'
digest snippets of comment. There is a lot to digest, and the sides can
interfere with the main courses (I must be hungry). Cash's girlfriend, artist
Detroit (Tessa Thompson), is a woman with many layers to get through. A political
activist and performance artist, she seemingly puts on her "white
voice" to sell her art to rich investors, though this isn't explored
enough, and as such leaves her character under-cooked and somewhat hard to swallow
in parts (really hungry).
As such, "Sorry to Bother You"
can feel somewhat like an album of separate songs, some better than others,
rather than a complete whole as a film. Similar to "Office Space",
scenes can work very well as comedy sketches, but may need to be fully-formed a
little better. This perhaps is the result of Riley struggling to get the film
project off the ground for a number of years; an idea he has been working on
for some time, with The Coup's album of the same name coming in 2012.
But importantly, for the film's sake at
least, Riley is having fun throughout, especially with the film's climax.
Despite the serious subject matter, we are kept entertained; the
laughs kept coming, without bogging us down in a law degree. Creativity and
humour are the film's two strong points. The soundtrack's not too bad either.
For a first time director, this is
certainly an interesting debut. Politics will always be close-to-hand for
Riley in his music and now in his cinema, as seen with his comments on Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" - a
film with a similar plot device - and so he will always want to get his
opinions across. Its success will also result in more faith from producers in the future; and with some more polishing of his methods, Riley's call to the film industry
won't be bothering, but welcome.
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