Ok, first of all, if you haven't seen Sorry to Bother You yet, stop reading this and go see it. It's better going in knowing NOTHING. For once in my dumb life I *didn't* read a billion reviews before seeing the movie and I was very happy I got to have the full experience.
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Ok, now that you saw it--- HOLY SHIT, RIGHT?
Lakeith Stanfield, best known for his role as Darius in Atlanta and also that black dude at the party who flips out when Daniel Kaluuya takes his picture in Get Out, plays Cassius Green--a man barely scraping by in Oakland, CA and living in his uncle's (played by Terry Crews, with hair!) garage. He takes a job as a telemarketer in a soul-crushing cubicle farm and a coworker (Danny Glover) encourages him to use his "white voice" to do better at his job. Cassius' white voice isn't his own voice but "whiter", it's REALLY fucking white--David Cross supplies the voice and you know how white David Cross sounds.
Cassius' success gets the attention of management who promote him to "Power Caller", which comes with a pay raise so huge he can't refuse, as well as a private golden elevator to a penthouse at the top of the building, filled with beautiful people selling...well....they're not exactly selling discount cruise vacations to elderly people up there.
Right as Cassius' star is rising, his coworkers, lead by Squeeze (Steven Yeun), are staging a strike in order to get paid better and receive benefits. Cassius' artist girlfriend, Detroit (the always wonderful Tessa Thompson) joins their ranks while also enjoying the benefits of Cassius' newfound wealth--but their relationship is hanging by a thread because Cassius is changing by hanging out with all those power callers and using his white voice all the time. MONEY MAKES PEOPLE WORSE. I'm not being sarcastic. It just does. How many kind and authentic rich people do you know? The only rich people I know are entitled dipshits who don't believe white privilege exists.
(Yes, I know. Wealth is relative. I'm probably in the top 1% if you compare me to the rest of the entire world. I, too, am an entitled dipshit).
So anyway, the shiz really hits the fan when Cassius is invited to a party at the home of a guy named Steve Lift (played PERFECTLY by Armie Hammer) who created a company called "Worry Free" where workers sign lifetime contracts to live, work, and eat in the same building without being paid because their living expenses are covered. Yes, it's literally slave labor--though, notably, all the ads and commercials for "Worry Free" feature white people.
So Cassius goes to Steve's mansion and is forced to perform a rap song for a group of drunk and high white people ("boring cunts" as Steve refers to them) but since Cassius can't rap, he just repeats the phrase "n*gger shit n*gger shit n*gger shit" over and over to a beat and it's a hit. The white people yell it right back to him.
The whole party scene was absolutely bonkers and hilarious--reminded me of Django Unchained where they go to that debauched party at Calvin Candy's house in New Orleans.
But then, right as Steve requests a private meeting with Cassius to talk about a project that he'd be a fool to turn down, Cassius accidentally discovers what Steve is REALLY up to and...man. To say the movie takes a sharp left turn isn't accurate--the movie launches into a different plane of existence.
And that's where I'll stop with the plot synopsis. If you read all this and haven't seen the movie--GO SEE IT.
Sorry to Bother You, which is directed by rapper Boots Riley, reminded me of a lot of films that touch on similar issues. The one movie it really felt kin to is Spike Lee's Bamboozled about a black man (Damon Wayans) who creates a TV show that incorporates blackface and minstrelsy as a "fuck you" to his white boss, but it backfires and becomes a hit--netting him power and money even though he created an insanely racist product. Similarly, STBY is about what happens when a black individual achieves success by fitting in to white culture and in that process ends up fucking over other black people (and poorer people).
It also reminded me of Django Unchained with its moments of crazed debauchery and pitch black humor and, of course, Get Out, especially in the last third. Despite all these comparisons, STBY never felt derivative--it is fully its own weird and wonderful thing. Even if all the ideas didn't come together seamlessly, it is so unique and bizarre that its minor flaws are 100% forgiven.
Sorry to Bother You is many things: an Oakland fantasia, a pro-union comedy, a perverse exploration of white privilege. But it is also one thing: a movie that must be seen to be believed.
Grade: A
