I saw eight movies at this year’s Independent Film Festival Boston and will be posting reviews of them all over the next two weeks or so.
Five minutes into director/writer/rapper Boots Riley’s long-awaited second feature, I thought, “This seems almost prosaic compared to the wackiness of its predecessor, Sorry To Bother You.” Then, a giant, rolling object rambunctiously followed the film’s protagonists down San Francisco Bay-area streets as if threatening to flatten them (or adhere them to its ever-growing circumference) and I don’t know why I ever considered such a notion.
In Riley-world, “Boosters” are predominantly young female shoplifters who make a living selling their bounty to customers for a fraction of its worth (the full title comes from one of Riley’s own songs.) Led by the gimlet-eyed Corvette (an always fabulous Keke Palmer) and the far more open (if susceptible) Sade (Naomi Ackie), they encounter a common antagonist, Christie Smith (Demi Moore, applying newfound comedic skills cultivated in The Substance), a prodigious fashion designer, kind of a cross between Anna Wintour and a more charismatic Elizabeth Holmes. Corvette, herself a budding designer, idolizes Smith until she learns the mogul has stolen some of her work. Along with fellow booster Mariah (Taylour Paige), Corvette and Sade procure jobs at a franchise of a chain of stores where Smith’s highly sought-after couture is sold in order to boost the merchandise for revenge.
As I did at the start, you may be asking, “What’s so weird about that?” Well, Riley, for whom Looney Tunes is a self-admitted influence not only coats everything in exuberantly candy-colored palettes. Check out the entire vibe of Grayson (a game Will Poulter), the exquisitely passive-aggressive store manager at boutique the Boosters infiltrate, or a pyramid-scheme cult led by the wacked out Dr. Jack (Don Cheadle), or Poppy Liu as a Chinese Booster whose favored way of lifting warps this all into a sci-fi film. I haven’t even mentioned Sorry To Bother You star Lakeith Stanfield as a French-accented lothario with an outrageously sexual secret of his own.
I adore Riley’s can-you-top-this, live-action cartoon approach while also acknowledging that it is both an acquired taste and a tad exhausting over time. Still, he does excel at holding one’s attention even if you’re flummoxed by what you’re seeing. As his political subtext becomes very much the text in the last act, it ends up profound and affecting rather than sanctimonious or preachy. The real conundrum of this silly, fervent work is that while some polish and restraint could make for more consistent, less divisive entertainment, something crucial would be lost. No one else is currently making movies remotely like this and that’s no small feat.
Haunted Jukebox 