Sorry To Bother You
Hi Lakeith Stanfield,
And hi Tessa Thompson too,
My new fave actors.
I am afraid. Very afraid. I’m afraid that Lakeith Stanfield is so good at playing the unassuming, well-meaning stoner that he’s going to be typecast as this type of character for the rest of his life, his acting range DOA a la Zach Galifianakis after "The Hangover" or Melissa McCarthy post-"Bridesmaids." By following his breakout in “Atlanta” with a feature role that never strays too far from Darius’s mythos, I’d say there’s a decent chance of that happening. And maybe he’s fine with that. At least Stanfield is damn funny, and so is “Sorry To Bother You.”
When I first watched the trailer for STBY, I was afraid the movie would rely too heavily on the (nonetheless hilarious) one-joke premise of a black man using his “white voice” to find success as a telemarketer, but I’m happy to share that the movie goes to places far beyond where I ever expected it to go. It’s inventive to the nth degree, and so many times throughout the movie I kept asking myself, “How did this movie get made?” So kudos to Boots Riley for doing that.
While it definitely dragged at points, “Sorry To Bother You” felt like one of the freshest summer releases I’ve seen since 2016’s “The Lobster.” It kind of reminded me of “Colossal,” except that’s a bad comparison because I loved STBY and strongly disliked “Colossal.” STBY will definitely provide for a polarizing moviegoing experience, but if you love satire and anything-goes surrealism, and oh yeah, hate capitalism, you’ll feel right at home in this audience.