James Y. Lee
Boots Riley is one of those filmmakers whose new projects are all capital-E Events in some form. That’s mainly a reflection of the fact that he can’t ever seem to make anything that’s ever boring; his imagination works on a different level entirely.
Sorry to Bother You is a film that starts by introducing the White Voice for its Black telemarketer protagonist, who’s trapped in a bizarrely white-dominated corporate structure that’s working on something hilariously horrific, and beyond any of your wildest expectations. I’m a Virgo takes the concept of a 13-foot-tall Black boy and ran with it over the course of seven episodes to unfurl a tale of mass hysteria and its intersections with revolutionary politics and symbols. These are tales deeply integrated with modern Blackness and its role in progressive politics, often intertwined deeply with tales of class resistance and communist ideals and philosophies. And Riley’s sheer dedication to originality has been so deeply well-entrenched that whatever he elects to make is bound to be unlike anything modern audiences are exposed to—not even his previous works.
Enter I Love Boosters, perhaps the single zaniest use of a blank check out of an indie filmmaker I’ve seen out of any movie this past decade, and an admirably messy expansion of Riley’s abilities. To sum this thing up in any one way is a task of its own. Is it an homage to boosters, the people who steal high-end fashion clothing items and resell them at accessible prices? Is it a pro-union treatise that also somehow throws in the components and progression of Marxist theory? Is it a genre-melding brain-melter of a film that features at least two of the craziest f**king creatures to have ever graced our screens since… well, Sorry to Bother You? No one single answer to these questions will satisfactorily prepare viewers for the experience of this film. Not even the combination of all of those answers is likely to do the same.
Let’s start with the titular focus of the film’s primary source of adoration, an ensemble of three of our titular boosters, Corvette (Keke Palmer), Sade (Naomi Ackie), and Mariah (Taylour Paige). Living off the real estate of an abandoned chicken shop, the three of them have dedicated themselves to the low-price resale of upper-echelon fashion goods, which they’ve dubbed as Fast Fashion Philanthropy (the lattermost still abbreviated to an F). As of late, their targets have been set on Metro, a massive fashion conglomerate led by Christie Smith (Demi Moore), an executive with a reality distortion field so severe that her office is stationed in a building that literally leans farther than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Corvette in particular has aspirations of becoming a fashion designer—and the three of them quickly become acquainted with Christie’s operations and methods, if not her substantially self-serving ethos.
Among those operations are Christie’s retail stores, which run on the theme of rotating out singular colors that the entire store’s lineup is dominated by for a period of time. The first time we see it, the entire store is ubiquitously taken up by green clothing. Its manager is Grayson, played by Will Poulter, who hilariously channels a delusionally uptight persona, enforcing Metro’s cultural marketing points of innovation and an obscene work culture where 30-second lunch breaks are the norm. Corvette, Sade, and Mariah infiltrate one of these retail stores in order to get a better sense of its schedules and operations before beginning to boost its stock. But when it becomes clear that Christie’s gone out of her way to steal Corvette’s designs— and when a sudden interloper named Jianhu (Poppy Liu) reveals herself to be a one-woman boosting operation in her own right—our main trio’s plans quickly fall into riveting disarray.
The above is a relatively straightforward way of contextualizing the film’s early passages, but trust, dear reader, that the film is already anything but. I’ve neglected to mention, for instance, Lakeith Stanfield’s Pinky Ring Man, who seems to be channeling supernatural influence every time he awkwardly approaches Corvette, and soon reveals himself to be one of the most bonkers-off-the-wall monstrosities I’ve ever seen in a film. I’ve also left out Don Cheadle’s presence as the head of a pyramid scheme called Friends Being Friendly, which Sade has fallen head-over-heels for, and whose presence hilariously infects other aspects of the film over time. I won’t be mentioning the exact reason for Jianhu’s adeptness as a solo booster, other than to bring up its relevance to Christie’s extensive use of Chinese sweatshops as a meaningful subplot, as well as its shockingly literal interpretation of dialectical materialism.
Have I lost you yet? If so, the film just might; it’s inevitable that with this much going for it, there are moments where the film partially loses its grip on focus. But even with Riley’s complete smorgasbord of ideas, theories, motifs, and characters—not all of which wind up receiving their full due—it’s worth noting that the film at least has a solid handle on Corvette and her troupe of boosters as galvanizing forces of creativity. And while character development and payoffs for certain elements are somewhat thrown to the wayside as a result of Riley’s ambition, it also means that this is an insanely entertaining experience you’re not likely to forget anytime soon. If there’s any place that I Love Boosters ultimately coheres fully, it’s in its spirit of class and racial solidarity. Its strength is unmatchable, carried into the film’s expressions of communist theory, pro-union sentiment, and capitalist deconstruction.
What a wonderfully stylized kaleidoscope of a film this is, as a result—highlighted and framed wonderfully by Natasha Braier’s (The Neon Demon) cinematography. So much color abounds in Christopher Glass’s production design, ranging from the pastel monochromes of Christie’s retail stores and corporate facilities; the lived-in urban streetways, stores, and alleys of the boosters’ home turf; and the factories all the way in China, where we witness the toxic means through which Metro’s created their chromatic branding. And no conversation about a film this thoroughly integrated with the fashion industry would ever be complete without talking about the visionary Shirley Kurata’s costume design. Here, she’s leveled up her work from the galvanizing Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) to deliver outfits that run entire spectrums of color, body shapes, geometric patterns, earnest to corporate creativity, and so on. Every single outfit is distinct from the last, proof that her designs are worthy of a fashion house in their own right.
It should come as no surprise at this point that this is Riley’s single most ambitious film, relentlessly committed to over-the-top zaniness while still deconstructing modern notions of labor, theft, and so on. Pitted against the spiritual theft of ideas, concepts, cultures, and livelihoods by our greedy corporate overlords, is physical theft of material goods and clothing really so abhorrent? How do we create conditions of solidarity in a world where the billionaires lording themselves above us have the money to shape narratives however they wish, in all dominant forms of media? It’s a genuine treat that Riley’s chosen to frame these questions—and his hypotheses—within the context of a film that constantly shifts genres and narrative directions left and right, all while maintaining a real sense of optimism for our ability to push back.
And that, right there, is the key to this film—hope, above anything else. So often have we seen tales of class struggle that end in defeat or violence. And while they’re often genuine and earnest reflections of how harrowing that fight is in our dire modern day, the other end’s got to give sometime soon. For as messy as it is in construction and eventual payoff, it’s a modern miracle that something that I Love Boosters exists, and it should inspire any filmmaker working on an original-story blank-check to seriously step up their game.
Riley’s demonstrated a sharp class consciousness that he refuses to dilute into academic theorizing or dour realism. Time and time again, he’s opted to make the terms of that consciousness as entertaining and imaginative as possible, all in service of a world where solidarity wins out in the end. If that victory is ever to come for us, Riley knows it’s going to arrive with an uncontainable, joyful explosion of color, ideas, self-expression, and creativity. I Love Boosters, as with all his other work, is an irreverent invitation to come join him in the blast zone.
