Boots Riley turns the pressure to get ahead into funny, angry absurdity. We recommend his debut for the sharpness of its jokes, with a caveat: his people sometimes need more attention than his next invention.
Fi1m perspective
In Sorry to Bother You (2018), a borrowed voice becomes a means of getting ahead in telemarketing. Boots Riley makes an absurd joke out of the changes a worker is expected to make before anyone will reward him. We laughed at the borrowed voice because it makes the demand to change yourself for a job so plainly ridiculous. That is where we rate Riley most highly: when an invention makes a familiar pressure easier to recognise.
His feature debut already puts his preference for collective resistance ahead of the simpler pleasure of watching one employee escape a bad boss. The move to television with I'm a Virgo (2023), which he created and directed, gives his taste for the outsize a literal form in a 13-foot-tall Black teenager in Oakland. His second feature, I Love Boosters (2026), centres on shoplifters redistributing luxury goods. The changes of format and setting have not meant dropping his interest in how people act together against exploitation.
In Sorry to Bother You, LaKeith Stanfield's calmly bemused performance gives us someone to stay with while Riley keeps adding complications. Terel Gibson's editing moves the jokes along without stopping to explain each one, and that speed suits a director who expects us to keep up. We like the bluntness when a joke does the explaining. The jokes stay sharp because he keeps pay and race in view together. Riley also keeps asking what happens to the other workers, which gives the comedy more to do than reward its central character.
The cost is time with the people: the romantic subplot in Sorry to Bother You feels thin beside its more extravagant inventions. Merrill Garbus and Riley's music adds to the restlessness, and new ideas arrive before the previous ones have had enough room. We wanted him to stay with the people rather than reach for another invention. A little less activity would leave more space for the relationships that make the workplace pressures matter. Start with the debut, and allow for a director who sometimes needs to leave a good idea out.
Biography
Boots Riley is an American director, screenwriter and rapper. Born Raymond Lawrence Riley on 1 April 1971 in Chicago, Illinois, he is the lead vocalist of the political hip-hop group The Coup and of Street Sweeper Social Club.
Riley made his feature directorial debut with Sorry to Bother You (2018), which he also wrote. The film features music by The Coup. He went on to create and direct the series I'm a Virgo (2023) and to write and direct the feature I Love Boosters (2026).
