Curiosity Inc.

It’s been way too long since we’ve heard from Boots Riley, and I’ve already waited way too long to cover this one. Sorry to Bother You was a triumphant filmmaking debut, darkly hilarious, wildly inventive, and visually astounding, a masterpiece of race-driven satire for a late-stage capitalist culture. And now he’s finally coming back with more of the same.

Imagine my pleasure to find that with I Love Boosters, Boots Riley delivered another cartoonishly over-the-top and ruthlessly scathing satire of capitalism. And imagine my shock to find that Riley took the outrageously heightened tone of Sorry To Bother You, started with that as a baseline, and only got exponentially crazier from there. Let’s take it from the top, shall we?

The plot this time revolves around Metro Designers, a fashion chain led by deranged billionaire and self-made prodigy Christie Smith (Demi Moore). Predictably, the clothes are all made overseas in dreadfully unsafe working conditions, and everyone who works for the company in any capacity is paid basically nothing. So the clothes are sold at an outrageously high markup and the profits all go to the corporate suite.

Even better, Metro Designers has a gimmick: Their stores are entirely monochromatic. All the clothes and decorations are the same color, and each store has a different color. The idea is that if the customer wants clothes in a different color, they have to travel to a different store. It’s a system that can only work if the customers are loyal enough to the brand that they’ll put up with the additional work. It’s that same brand loyalty that promises creativity and expression in a way that paradoxically makes all the Metro Designers faithful look exactly the same. Oh, and the monochrome outfits make for a striking cinematic visual, that’s a bonus.

The bottom line here is that Christie Smith is outrageously overcharging people for something that nobody really needs. And she justifies this by saying over and over again that she’s making people into works of art. Willfully skipping over the part where she and she alone gets to be the artist and everyone else is nothing more than a blank canvas for her exclusive personal use.

Obviously, fast fashion is a hugely controversial topic in and of itself. But making it symbolic of capitalism as a whole was an inspired move. So where do our protagonists come into this? Buckle up, folks.

Our lead protagonist is Corvette (Keke Palmer), an aspiring fashion designer whose ideas were stolen and neutered by Christie Grace. Thus she and her best friends (Sade and Mariah, respectively played by Naomi Ackie and Taylour Paige) form the “Velvet Gang”, living off the grid and working as “boosters”. Meaning they steal Metro Designers’ clothes from off the rack and sell it on the black market at a steep discount. It’s a simple business plan, complicated by a number of supporting players.

• William Poulter plays Grayson, a brainless middle manager with an outsized opinion of the company and his place within it.
• LaKeith Stanfield plays an enigmatic and possibly demonic love interest for Corvette.
• Kerris Dorsey plays Christie Smith’s assistant. She doesn’t affect the plot in any way, but she does get the best line in the whole movie.
• Eiza Gonzalez plays Violeta, a disgruntled Metro Designers employee with aspirations of starting a union.

The film makes a big deal about collective action, and coming together to fight against a system determined to keep us apart and fighting each other. In the best case, that collective action gets harnessed by someone like Violeta so we can all take back power and look out for each other. In the worst case scenario, we get someone like Dr. Jack (Don Cheadle) preying on people’s fears and insecurities to bring them into a pyramid scheme.

(Side note: Look sharp for some genuinely hilarious cameo appearances from Jason Ritter, Eric Andre, Robin Thede, and Viggo freaking Mortensen.)

And then we get Jianhu (Poppy Liu), who comes in at the halfway point and joins as the latest member of the Velvet Gang. This is where the film jumps clear off the rails to reach a whole new level of insanity.

See, Jianhu is a refugee from the Chinese factories where her relatives and neighbors are all literally working themselves to death because Christie Smith is a sociopath. This introduces some neat friction in the Velvet Gang, forming a schism between those who want to screw over Christie Smith for the sake of social justice and those who want to screw her over for the sake of making money.

Far more importantly, Jianhu brings in a sci-fi element that completely upends the whole picture. I won’t go into details. Partly because of spoilers, and partly because it’s too impossibly bugshit to try and describe. The filmmakers never even try to pretend it makes any kind of sense. Suffice to say the sci-fi element works best when it plays into the greater theme of conflict.

In point of fact, an unfortunate side effect of the film’s heightened nature is that it constantly seems to be at war with itself. While Boots Riley is clearly a visionary capable of maintaining and selling a consistent tone, it’s not always easy to tell how grounded in reality this film is supposed to be. For all the actors’ talents, none of them register as actual people because the filmmakers were clearly more interested in making the characters into heightened symbols.

More to the point, the film is overloaded with outlandish visuals, and there’s little rhyme or reason as to which ones are supposed to be diegetic. Case in point: Metro Designers is headquartered in a tower that’s inexplicably built at a steep 45-degree angle. Thus Christie Smith herself is totally comfortable while everyone else is literally struggling to get their footing. And this is quite literal within the setting of the film. There’s an extended set piece involving a character who’s physically incapable of escaping the office because the floor is too steep.

But what about the recurring metaphor of Corvette’s debts and doubts and fears all rolled up into a giant paper ball that destroys entire neighborhoods? What about the set piece that shows LaKeith Stanfield’s character as an actual, literal demon? Are those supposed to be symbolic or literal? Does it matter either way?

Which brings me to another major drawback inherent in the nature of this plot: All the extraneous subplots. While it’s always a pleasure to see LaKeith Stanfield on the screen, his character could’ve been cut entirely and nothing of value would’ve been lost. Yes, I get that he’s a symbol of toxic masculinity, but I’m not clear on how that fits with the central anti-capitalist message. The democracy think tank subplot is the opposite scenario — yes, I get what the intended message was, and it makes sense that the filmmakers would try and comment on that topic as an aspect of the greater point. But in practice, the subplot is half an hour of bullshit crammed into a five-minute sequence. Sure, it looks as eye-catchingly bizarre as anything else in this picture, but the film would’ve gone so much smoother if it had been cut.

Then again, I Love Boosters was built from the ground up to be anything but smooth. From the characters to the visuals to the themes to the messy melange of storylines, this entire movie was built to serve as an ode to anarchy. Which is not the same thing as chaos — the film is firmly against government, but it’s not without order. There’s a method to the madness here.

The bottom line here is that if you saw Sorry to Bother You and wished you had more of it, you’re getting Sorry to Bother You squared. And if you didn’t see Sorry to Bother You, get on that shit, it’s a great movie.

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