Sorry to Bother You
- This is a past program
Presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series Summer Sci-Fi. Learn more at cinema.ucla.edu.
Whether writer-director Boots Riley’s 2018 feature debut is set in a parallel universe or a near-future Oakland it remains a bitingly funny and incisive satire of our world, right now. With his life stalled out but a motivating woman (Tessa Thompson) at his side, Cassius (LaKeith Stanfield) begrudgingly takes a cubicle job at a telemarketing company where he proves preternaturally adept at appealing to his marks’ biases to rack up sales. In short, he does an excellent “white voice.” In Riley’s painfully clear vision, however, capitalism offers only two options for entry: sell your freedom or sell your conscience. As Cassius rises up the corporate ladder the choice becomes ever more stark as Riley injects ever heavier doses of surrealism and absurdity into the proceedings without breaking our emotional connection to his well-drawn characters.
DCP, color, 112 min. Director: Boots Riley. Screenwriter: Boots Riley. With: LaKeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler.
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