When I was in high school, I discovered the works of Eugene Ionesco for the first time. He was a playwright who pioneered the Theater of the Absurd movement. He wrote plays that indicted normalcy and the "real world" by using absurd humor and satire. He explored human existence in a unique way. I ate it up. Absurdism, then, has always had a special place in my heart. Utilizing humor to explore complex philosophical ideas is right in my wheelhouse. You can imagine, then, how excited I was for Boots Riley's film, Sorry to Bother You.
Too Long: This is a film that needs to be 90 minutes, not 111. Hell, you could tell this story effectively and make your point in 30. By committing to putting everything on screen, the story sags under the weight of its own perceived brilliance, and feels like it goes on for ages.
Wasted Tessa Thompson: This film landed one of the most interesting young actors in the biz, Tessa Thompson, and wasted her. Her character, a provocateur artist named Detroit, is paper thin, and her characterization is largely expressed in humorous earrings and teeshirts. It is never made entirely clear if we are to take her art serious, or if we are to laugh at her. It feels like the film wants to have it both ways: her art is presented largely for laughs, but she is the main voice of critique for Cassius' bad behavior. She plays white just like Cassius does, only she does it to potential patrons, and not to sell encyclopedias. The ultimate problem is that you could cut her entire character out of the movie, and it wouldn't effect the main plot at all. She flits in and out of frame, mostly an afterthought. And she has no chemistry with Stanfield: it's hard to have any emotional stakes in a relationship that is vapid and empty.
No Sense of Time: There are times where the movie is set in the morning, where the film was clearly shot in the afternoon. There are times where the film shifts from the middle of the afternoon to absolute night time. There is no sense of how much time has actually passed. Characters say lines, occasionally, about "working here for three months," but it never feels like that at all. One might be tempted to say, "but that's the point: IT'S ABSURD!" It's not. It's lazy filmmaking.
Shitty Prosthetic Horse People: Look, it's going to take me too long to tell you how Horse People show up in this film. But they do. And they look like shitty Halloween Superstore costumes.
Empty Emotional Beats: The film tries to get some mileage out of Cassius having emotional confrontations with other characters. Only all of the characters are cardboard cutouts, and none of them matter, so their forgiveness rings hollow. It feels like Riley wants to keep Cassius a hero by vindicating him, as opposed to doing a deep dive and letting him really hit rock bottom. None of the things he's doing (selling people and weapons to corporate buyers (yeah, it's complicated, don't fucking bother)) ever seem to really bother him, or have a real adverse effect. The movie, instead, walks through its paces: Cassius and his girlfriend get back together, Cassius and his friends have a lunch where they make nice, Cassius turns his life around and becomes a good person. The problem is that these things just happen. They aren't earned. They were written to happen in a script, and they happened. There is a certain amount of pathos you trade in absurdist theater: that's part and parcel of showing a real absurdist world. It's hard for an audience to emotionally connect with people who act in patently absurd ways. Characters are metaphors or symbols more than they are meant to be ACTUAL, real people. Riley commits the sin of trying to have his emotional cake and eat it, too. You can't. Or, rather, when you try, you end up with an unfocused mess.
Summary:
Capitalism is bad. Consumerism is bad. Horse people. Blah blah blah.Pros:
I did not like this movie. I cannot think of a single strength of the film that does not ultimately become a weakness. Yes, it has a strong cast, but misuses them. Yes, it is funny, but its jokes undermine its story and stakes and sometimes feel like juvenile stabs are profundity.Cons:
Too Many Ideas: The film is stuffed to the gills with ideas. The problem is that it doesn't commit to any of them. It is neither completely absurdist, or entirely set in the "real world." Riley attempts to play with one foot in both the absurdist genre and a foot rooted in some kind of realism, to the detriment of both. There are some nice moments: Cassius' (Lakeith Stanfield, whose charisma is largely wasted and absent, here) old furniture splits down the center, like a cracking egg, revealing shiny new fashionable furniture in his shiny new apartment, the black employees at the telemarketing firm adopt a "white voice" that is essentially an overdub by white actors (Patton Oswalt and David Cross), and Cassius drops into the setting of his calls coming face to face with his customers. The problem is that the film never does anything like the furniture splitting ever again, the white overdubbing is distracting (and oddly insulting: white actors get to LITERALLY rob the voices of actors of color; one of those actors literally only has ONE line in his actual voice), and the admittedly cool idea to have a telemarketer literally drop into the living room of a customer never actually amounts to anything and the film doesn't really use the conceit in any form or powerful way. The plot starts out interesting enough, if a bit preachy, as an indictment of capitalism and telemarketing, but RACES off the rails as soon as possible. The film explores philosophical ideas like a college freshman with a term paper due the next day: quickly, without nuance, and all at once, daring you to remark how fucking clever it is.Too Long: This is a film that needs to be 90 minutes, not 111. Hell, you could tell this story effectively and make your point in 30. By committing to putting everything on screen, the story sags under the weight of its own perceived brilliance, and feels like it goes on for ages.
Wasted Tessa Thompson: This film landed one of the most interesting young actors in the biz, Tessa Thompson, and wasted her. Her character, a provocateur artist named Detroit, is paper thin, and her characterization is largely expressed in humorous earrings and teeshirts. It is never made entirely clear if we are to take her art serious, or if we are to laugh at her. It feels like the film wants to have it both ways: her art is presented largely for laughs, but she is the main voice of critique for Cassius' bad behavior. She plays white just like Cassius does, only she does it to potential patrons, and not to sell encyclopedias. The ultimate problem is that you could cut her entire character out of the movie, and it wouldn't effect the main plot at all. She flits in and out of frame, mostly an afterthought. And she has no chemistry with Stanfield: it's hard to have any emotional stakes in a relationship that is vapid and empty.
No Sense of Time: There are times where the movie is set in the morning, where the film was clearly shot in the afternoon. There are times where the film shifts from the middle of the afternoon to absolute night time. There is no sense of how much time has actually passed. Characters say lines, occasionally, about "working here for three months," but it never feels like that at all. One might be tempted to say, "but that's the point: IT'S ABSURD!" It's not. It's lazy filmmaking.
Shitty Prosthetic Horse People: Look, it's going to take me too long to tell you how Horse People show up in this film. But they do. And they look like shitty Halloween Superstore costumes.
Empty Emotional Beats: The film tries to get some mileage out of Cassius having emotional confrontations with other characters. Only all of the characters are cardboard cutouts, and none of them matter, so their forgiveness rings hollow. It feels like Riley wants to keep Cassius a hero by vindicating him, as opposed to doing a deep dive and letting him really hit rock bottom. None of the things he's doing (selling people and weapons to corporate buyers (yeah, it's complicated, don't fucking bother)) ever seem to really bother him, or have a real adverse effect. The movie, instead, walks through its paces: Cassius and his girlfriend get back together, Cassius and his friends have a lunch where they make nice, Cassius turns his life around and becomes a good person. The problem is that these things just happen. They aren't earned. They were written to happen in a script, and they happened. There is a certain amount of pathos you trade in absurdist theater: that's part and parcel of showing a real absurdist world. It's hard for an audience to emotionally connect with people who act in patently absurd ways. Characters are metaphors or symbols more than they are meant to be ACTUAL, real people. Riley commits the sin of trying to have his emotional cake and eat it, too. You can't. Or, rather, when you try, you end up with an unfocused mess.
In Conclusion:
I hated this movie, and I got angrier with each step away from the theater I took. It wasted my time, and my money.Should You Watch It?
No, absolutely not. Stick a twenty dollar bill into a wood chipper: at least you'd be entertained.Miscellany:
- I'm still kind of raw about it, and refuse to waste any more of my time reading about this film.
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