Sorry to bother you
Prayer to disturb
Film. Between acerbic critic of digital capitalism and social satire well crazy, the first realisation of the rapper Boots Riley is an UFO !
By Franck Lebraly
Seen like that, we could think that Sorry To Bother You is a clever mix of big datas from what works today : an independent rapper to realisation (Boots Riley, MC of The Coup), the actor of one of the best series of the moment (Lakeith Stanfield of Atlanta also seen on Get Out…), the starlet who rises (Tessa Thompson : Creed, Dear White People, MIB4), and, as an added bonus, the beautiful boy of Call Me By Your Name (Armie Hammer). All in one black comedy a little bit demagogue with Forrest Whitaker for producer (Bird, Dope, Forgiven…).
But the film goes well beyond this name dropping a little bit blinking. When Cassius was hired in a telemarketing agency, he doesn’t pull out two sentences until we hang up on him. His older desk neighbor gives him the hose to imitate the voice of a white man, which will open the doors of an inordinate social elevator where he will find glory, respect and admiration. By the way, this mentor is played by Danny Glover, the cult actor of Lethal Weapon,which became, this last years, left activist and support of Bernie Sanders. And precisely, nothing goes any further when the colleagues of Cassius decide to go on strike and he has to choose between them and his ascension. Losing few friends or a lot of dollars, this is his dilemma.
This face to face between young people of the hood and the actors of the new technologies was already in the center of Blindspotting… But Sorry To Bother You doesn’t stop there. Cassius meets Armie Hammer, his boss. Billionaire from the Silicon Valley who reinvented the slavery and who proposes him a Faustian pact… And there, the line between the burlesque and the frankly disturbing kitch is crossed… It’s a little bit like the glass of excess. Boots Riley, also author of the script that has been outstanding since 2012, balances new themes at each scene, such as an extension of its MC flow. The passage with (be careful, spoiler !) of human horses, really ugly due to lack of means undoubtedly, seems to be the verse of too much. He referred the film—until then promising—to the Z serie. However, we think about Michel Gondry (Eternel Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Charlie Kaufman (also scenarist of Being John Malkovich) face to the madness of this independent and militant, disorderly and unequal trip. Definitely out of the norm !
