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Cassius Green’s (Lakeith Stanfield) job prospects are not
very impressive. Just to get a telemarketing job, Cassius makes up some story
about having worked at a bank, he puts together a fake “Employee of the Month”
award that he proudly props on his knee throughout the interview, and he even
brings in some giant trophy he supposedly won in high school (he didn’t). Just
to get a telemarketing job!
Alas, Cassius’ fake news is quickly debunked. But, luckily,
as the interviewer points out, the standards for getting a telemarketing job
are not exactly sky high—pretty much anyone can get the job. Plus, the
interviewer figures Cassius’ fabrications show initiative.
And thus Cassius’ bottom-of-the-barrel scraping finally turns
up some dregs. He has a job! It is a terrible job, of course, but Cassius is
just the man for it.
In fact, Cassius turns out to be a great telemarketer.
Though he is meek and uncommanding in person, Cassius finds his groove on the
line. His main trick—passed down to him by Langston (Danny Glover), an old
veteran telemarketer—is to speak in a “white voice” … you know, like how white
people talk. And Cassius has a great one (in fact, it is literally a white
voice—it’s spoken by David Cross (aka Tobias from “Arrested Development”)).
So Cassius is on his way up. Literally, actually. The “power
callers”, as they are mythically referred to, work upstairs—they even have
their own special elevator with like a 500-number security code. It’s a
telemarketer’s dream to ascend to such lofty heights.
Except some telemarketers—well, most of them you’d have
to think—know that upward mobility isn’t much of a thing in the telemarketing
biz. They are lowly peons, and they know it.
And they hate it. After all, they bring in all the money,
but they hardly share in the profits. So through the encouragement of a
perennial rabble-rouser named Squeeze (Steven Yeun), the employees of the
telemarketing firm decide to band together, unionize, and then strike. And
Cassius, along with his girlfriend, Detroit (Tess Thompson), and his best
friend, Salvador (Jermaine Fowler), are right there on the front picket lines.
So when Cassius is called in to his boss’s office, he
thinks he’s going to be fired. Instead, he’s promoted. Well, then, um, you see,
things are different. Lowly-peon Cassius was up in arms, defiant, a rebel for
the cause, etc. But upper-crust Cassius, well, that’s not so simple—he has
bills to pay, after all, and, plus, it’s not like he is against what his friends and former colleagues are fighting for.
Thus, Cassius finds himself in one of those classic
capitalist conundrums. It’s easy to fight the system … until it’s about to get
you paid.
And, indeed, “Sorry to Bother You” is at its very best
when it is hitting these notes—specifically when it is rendering its blistering
critique of capitalism, consumerism, wage slavery, plutocratic politicians, and
basically everything about how our economy is ordered nowadays. It is sharp,
incisive, and, more often than not, spot on.
“Sorry to Both You” is also funny if you have the right
sense of humor. I don’t think I have the right sense of humor. (Or maybe I was just
mad that my MoviePass didn’t work. Again. Ugh.) Still, I could see that, if I
did have the right sense of humor, I’d find the movie funny—maybe even quite
funny. It is strange, surreal, quirky, understated, and dry. Cassius and Detroit,
in particular, have a certain warmth and liveliness to them that comes, at
least in part, from their not being cookie-cutter characters.
And that’s a relief—a relief that the movie is (potentially)
funny and warm. Because otherwise it might just piss you off. Maybe it will
anyway. For what it is tackling—specifically, the plight of non-elite workers—is
not a happy topic.
So, one way or another, this movie is evocative. It may
make you laugh. Or cry. Or both. But it should stir something up.
