Review of Sorry to Bother You, directed by Boots Riley

I’ve written about this on multiple different blog posts before, but something I’ve found to be pretty incredible throughout my life is how I’ve come to associate good movies with the memory of seeing them.

While some of us remember an awesome concert or experience with their families, I do this as well with movies. But there’s a twist with this specific blog post: I was only half paying attention the first time I watched Sorry to Bother You. I was a with a friend no longer a friend, and as soon as Steven Yeun popped up on the screen, I remembered my awkward trauma that had happened the same semester.

Basically, when I went to a tiny screening of Burning by Lee Chang-dong as a freshman in college, Steven Yeun showed up to the screening.

As an awkward eighteen-year-old heading out the door, he and I did that thing where we motion you go first at each other until I finally gave up and went. But, as it turns out, we were going in the same direction, which made me die inside even more. So I had trauma when I was watching this movie, and I recently revisited it having realized, as a 23-year-old, how nonsense that trauma was because nothing even happened.

I’ve rambled enough already. Let’s get into the review!

A Black telemarketer finds himself on top of the world after using his “White Voice” to get there.

So our main character in this movie is Cassius Green, who goes by the nickname Cash. By society’s standards, he might be considered a deadbeat, as he lives in his uncle’s garage with his artist girlfriend, Detroit. Cash isn’t doing so hot financially, and in order to get the bills paid and send the rent in on time, he desperately gets a job as a telemarketer for a place called RegalView.

But in the beginning, he’s struggling with getting customers until an older Black coworker tells him the secret: he needs to use his white voice.

Cash does that, putting on this ridiculous accent in order to sound more white. Turns out he’s really good at this, and it ends up getting him places.

At the same time, his coworker, Squeeze, is trying to form a union. He wants Cash in on this, but when he shows up to a protest, he thinks he’s about to get fired. Turns out he got a promotion instead to a Power Called position, and with the big cash bonus he’s getting, he’s told by Mr. _____, the guy in charge, that he needs to use his white voice all the time.

It’s here Cash also learns that RegalView sells weapons and cheap labor, utilizing lifetime contracts that basically are slave labor. Now equipped with the money to live a better life, Cash gets a nice apartment, helps his uncle out, and improves his relationship with his girlfriend.

He stops showing up to union meetings and Detroit quits her job there, joining a movement against what Cash is now profiting off of. He doesn’t know this at first, but when she breaks up with him, citing that he has become immoral, he defends it.

When walking through the picket lines the next morning, a video goes viral of Cash being hit with a soda can. Cash then goes to one of Detroit’s art exhibits, but is shocked to see her use a white voice in the midst of her performance. He’s pissed her off to the point where she goes and has sex with Squeeze.

The CEO of the company, Steve (ironically portrayed by Armie Hammer, how fitting), invites Cash to a party, being weirdly racist, and he offers Cash a snort of a powdered substance that he thinks is cocaine.

But when Cash discovers a bunch of dudes shackled on the way to the bathroom, having been turned into half-horse hybrids, Steve reveals that he wants to make their workers into these hybrids for a better company. He lies to Cash at first, saying he snorted cocaine, but then it turns out it wasn’t cocaine.

He realizes he dropped his phone, but the hybrid guys recorded a video on it documenting what was happening, and Cash reveals it to the public.

His plan really backfires though, as it’s considered a scientific achievement and people now love Steve. With his ex, Squeeze, and old coworkers, Cash brings the union to Steve’s home where they break out the hybrid guys.

The cops start a riot at the picket line, but the hybrid horse men stop the cops from taking Cash away. Detroit and Cash move back into his uncle’s garage, but Cash starts turning into a horse. When he transforms, he leads the hybrid horse men to Steve’s home to get revenge.

Overall Thoughts

This is a Boots Riley movie, so of course there’s a ton of social commentary involved with this movie. It takes several watches to catch on the more subtle notes, but this is such a brilliant directorial debut. I

can see how someone would call this movie a mess, as it enters some really funky territory after the halfway mark, but I think it works pretty well when it comes to the world the film is building throughout.

I surely wouldn’t recommend my mother to watch this, but if you haven’t seen it already, go watch it if you’re vaguely interested. I think Boots Riley is really in his element, and so are the actors in this movie.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for his future work!

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