#SORRY TO BOTHER YOU FILM MOVIE#

Sorry to Bother You is evidently going to be about labor and capitalism, but it is also just as much about race, as the two are so inextricably entwined, particularly within the American landscape. And everyone whoops because he got the job, he got the job, he got the job for nothing. You don’t need anything to do this job, he smirks. There’s a collective intake of anxious breath. He applies to work at a telemarketing company with fake documents and accolades to prove his worth and pay the rent. You don’t really know what to make of her yet there’s commentary seeping out of every scene’s pores which only sinks in later once Cassius gets a job. Detroit is an eccentrically-dressed artist who twirls signs on street corners. In the first, we see Cassius (Lakeith Stanfield) and his girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) shacked up in his uncle’s garage. Sorry to Bother You is effectively set up in three acts.

#SORRY TO BOTHER YOU FILM MOVIE#

I decided to rewatch the movie to revisit the very themes that my own life had begun adopting. A recent graduate watching people get laid off, I stayed up thinking about being green for cash that is green in a world where the future is flimsier than a dollar bill. But after returning to this “masterpiece” two years later in the economically rocky, post-COVID climate, I had a different perspective.

I didn’t think of all this the first time. But it is exactly the kind of subtle, even poetic symbolism the entire film hinges on, eventually achieving an expansive, layered social commentary couched in slapstick, symbols, and a Salvador Dali-esque absurdity. His name cleverly sets up almost the entire film in three syllables, although you may not realize it. This year, I became an officially unemployed person, which is how the film’s protagonist Cassius Green-pronounced “cash is green”-starts his narrative. It made me feel uneasy-until unease became the norm in 2020. I thought the film was good but also wacky, unsettling. Most primary criticisms included a somewhat haphazard execution of ideas and a risky third act that loosened the film’s potential for an airtight suckerpunch. But while the comparable Jordan Peele thriller garnered massive global acclaim, Riley’s film didn’t do as well commercially despite a generally favorable critical response.

Some who have already watched this Boots Riley-written feature have called it “ Get Out on acid”-one of the weirdest “trips” they have ever experienced. My friend had claimed she desperately needed to rewatch this “masterpiece.” 112 minutes later, I walked out frowning, the theater’s tube lights settling in the sourness of reality. No trailers or Reddit threads to prepare me. I walked in, popcorn-armed and blind, trusting her taste. I first watched Sorry to Bother You when a friend dragged me to a somewhere-in-nowhere cinema in Astoria, Queens, during the sticky summer of 2018.

Sorry to bother you film