"Sorry to Bother You" Review
This movie is bananas.
"Sorry to Bother You" is Boots Riley's feature length directorial debut and to describe it... well, film critic Christy Lemire said that it's as "if Spike Lee and Charlie Kaufman got together to do a remake of Office Space... that might begin to scratch the surface of what this movie is like." and yeah, it's like that. It's a highly unique movie and it's visceral, and unpredictable. Don't let the high concept surrealist satire stuff discourage you from seeing it because, at the end of the day, the characters' journeys are super easy to follow and the movie is so meticulous in setting up everything that when something insane does happen, it has already been telegraphed in an earlier scene and will make sense in its own weird way.
The movie is a great piece about identity, and perception (to grossly summarize) and it pushes the medium of film to its limits. It draws attention to its surrealism and it never feels pretentious. I personally really love its art design. No part of its art direction seems wasted as every piece of set dressing and costume is deliberate and means something. I think the movie does bite off more than it can chew, but I have to hand it to Boots Riley and his team for succeeding in realizing something so bizarre and out there.