Sorry to Bother You is a movie of its time. Which is to say, it already feels like it’s late. Funny and angry, surreal and urgent, Boots Riley’s movie takes on the tumult of current crises, wrapping trenchant analyses of class, race, and gender injustices around a spine of comedy and horror. Set in Oakland, California, Sorry to Bother You follows Cassius “Cash” Green (Lakeith Stanfield) as he begins a telemarketing job at a shady company called RegalView.
It’s not long before his coworkers — including his friend Salvador (Jermaine Fowler), his artist girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), and union organizer Squeeze (Steven Yeun) — undertake a labor stoppage. This, while Cash gets a promotion because he’s so very good at telemarketing, selling people things they don’t need, because he’s able to affect a completely alarming “white voice”; that is, a voice premised on privilege. As Cash makes money, he’s increasingly at odds with his friends and privy to RegalView’s monstrous exploitations.