90. JOHN DIES AT THE END (2013)
89. BRIDESMAIDS (2011)
88. THE WITCH (2015)
87. HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (2012)
86. THE TREE OF LIFE (2011)
85. THE BABADOOK (2014)
84. REAL STEEL (2011)
83. MUDBOUND (2018)
82. STAN & OLLIE (2018)
81. STOKER (2013)
80. ROOM 237 (2012)
79. UPGRADE (2018)
78. MIDSOMMAR (2019)
77. FENCES (2016)
76. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (2018)
With Sorry to Bother You, Boots Riley cements his place as a unique new voice in cinema. His style combines the community-building atmosphere of Spike Lee with the absurdist imagery of Terry Gilliam at his height, with a satirical allegory that dares to actually satirize. So much of what passes for satire nowadays is afraid to truly bite. Riley does not play nice with any of his characters, especially his hero.
It takes place in a skewed but very recognizable America, in which Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) must eke out a living as a telemarketer, a job at which he's not very good. When a co-worker (Danny Glover) advises him to use his "white voice," his sales immediately skyrocket. Soon he finds himself climbing the corporate ladder, but he can't get very far up before he starts to disregard the people he left below him. His girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) is an artist and activist who's protesting the very company he works for.
Riley perfectly captures the desperation in working-class America that leads to isolation: Cassius needs a job to make a living, even if it goes against what he stands for. The "white voice" is a particularly ingenious invention in itself: it implies not only speaking in a "white" accent, but carrying a sort of feigned confidence and casualness, as if this white voice has a lot less to worry about than its non-white owner. The brilliant move was to dub Stanfield with a white actor rather than have him affect a voice; the happy lilt in David Cross's voice is appropriately jarring and hilariously unfitting (Patton Oswalt and Steve Buscemi provide co-workers' white voices).
Though its aim is broad, Sorry to Bother You surprisingly remains sharp in attacking its targets. Riley also hits at self-help gurus and capitalist ubermensches in his portrayal of Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), a combination of Tony Robbins and Elon Musk who has found a way to market slavery as empowerment in his "WorryFree" movement. Just what Lift is up to is something I won't reveal here, but let me profess that the movie set me up to expect the most ridiculous outcome, and it still outdid itself.
In the end, though the movie is decidedly a comedy, the message is uncompromisingly bleak, and though Cassius is its everyman hero, he's also the target as the cog in the capitalist wheel. I was a little disappointed in Riley's decision to include a mid-credits scene that adds a somewhat conventional conclusion. The correct final shot is the one directly before the credits begin, and it's a doozy.
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