As the eccentric renegade to Cash’s freewheeling philosopher, Detroit even wears her financial status like a badge of honor.
Refreshingly, poverty is not treated as a stain on one’s existence, but as as a symptom of a flawed system ripe for upheaval. We are given a glimpse into their struggles via both firsthand and mediated accounts (TV broadcasts, smartphone videos, etc.), without exploiting their plight or cheapening their experiences. The film is peppered with surrealist elements, but is grounded by authentic, well-rounded characters most are neither heroes nor pariahs, but something in between. A video clip of Cash getting hit over the head with a soda can goes viral, and before long, there’s a wig being peddled with Cash’s curls and a felt can attached. The commodification and trivialization of dissent is lampooned by the memes that emerge from a demonstration at Cash’s workplace. In a more serious vein, Sorry is also a meditation on protest, power, and the dangers of an insatiable appetite for increased economic productivity. Not all of the ideas in Sorry are new or original (there are echoes of 2006’s Idiocracy and last year’s Okja), but the delivery is so shrewd, and the punches land so quickly, that they might as well be. As any non-white person can tell you, “white voice” is a very real thing, and it comes in handy for everything from ordering at a restaurant to convincing someone at a networking event that wow, it is such a coincidence, but your family also summers on Nantucket! There’s even a book on how Barack Obama mastered a more nuanced version of “white voice” known as “code-switching,” using it to his advantage throughout his presidential campaign and time in office. Sorry’s brand of humor is uproarious, but as with all good comedy, it also hits a nerve. Enter a thinly veiled labor camp-cum-prison complex called WorryFree, where families are given food and housing in exchange for a lifetime of work, and chaos ensues. Caught between forming a union with his coworkers and raking in big-time money, Cash suddenly finds himself wading into some ethically murky waters. But everything changes when fellow telemarketer Langston (Danny Glover) teaches Cash to tap into his “white voice” his success rate skyrockets, and he quickly climbs the ranks of the company hierarchy. At first, the gig is slow and Cash struggles to pay his bills, even the rent on the garage he shares with girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson, modeling some of the best statement jewelry ever seen onscreen).
Lakeith Stanfield, with his characteristic slouch and devastatingly expressive gaze, stars as Cassius Green (say it out loud – ha-ha, get it?), aka Cash, a freshly-hired telemarketer in a fictionalized version of Oakland, California. It’s no stretch to say that Boots Riley’s buzzy new directorial debut, Sorry to Bother You, attempts to scale the Mount Everest of cinematic feats. It’s a tall order for a film to be at once funny and sobering, doomsday and optimistic, slapstick at heart and thoughtful in execution.