If this is your first with Boots Riley picture, be prepared for a cinematic experience you won’t forget. The director of Sorry to Bother You and the creator of I’m a Vergo, takes you on another surreal cinematic odyssey that is bursting with color and a political commentary that is a capital F-you to capitalisms. Though I Love Boosters is over stimulating at points it is undeniably entertaining as we follow a group of boosters (shoplifters) take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven who sells fast fashion at the price of haute couture in the heart of San Francisco.
Like Riley’s previous works, every frame explodes with color and personality. The costume design is elaborate, eccentric and undeniably auteur. Then there is the cinematography where there is bold color grading where a single vivid hue dominates the entire frame. The production design is offbeat and entirely surreal. Riley doesn’t just build a world, he immerses you in it as I Love Boosters is a visual feast.
And it is not just the surface-level crafts that makes this film pop. Riley’s directorial fingerprints are all over this film as he leans hard into maximalism and hyper-stylization. The direction, editing, score and cinematography all embrace the fever dream aesthetics of Riley. Furthermore, instead of using CGI, Riley goes old school as he embraces miniatures and claymation for action pieces and characters. And while you can tell they are miniatures, that is part of the film’s charm as it further adds to the abstract, fever dream texture of this film.
And, like all of Riley’s previous work, the film is loaded with political commentary that is loud, messy and impossible to ignore. Corvette (Keke Palmer, Nope) is a hustling booster who dreams of building her own fashion label. However, she is constantly looking over her shoulder as a giant ball filled with bills and trauma follows her every move. She has found herself squatting in an abandoned restaurant with Mariah (Taylour Paige, Zola) and Sade (Naomi Ackie, Mickey 17) making a living off of boosting and being an underpaid retail employee for Metro.
Metro is run by Christie Smith (Demi Moore, The Substance), a gloriously cutthroat Devil Wears Prada-style boss who wears her exploitation like a badge of honor. She underpays her employees. She forces her employees to wear her clothing, even though they can’t afford it. All the while she is pumping out fast fashion from dangerous sweatshops but is selling it as haute couture. Corvette and her crew, along with their fellow workers want to take her down for good once and for all.
But the question remains. How do they take her down? Outside of boosting a couple of Metro stores and flirting with the idea of unionizing, they are completely lost. But this is Boots Riley we are talking about so the film doesn’t stay grounded for long as he takes some surreal swings that you won’t see coming. It’s blunt, anti-capitalist commentary, but told in a manner that only Riley knows how to. Sure not all of it lands and the story gets swallowed by Riley’s own stylistic impulse, but the sheer audacity of it all is hard not to admire. And with a cast this charismatic, the film is still incredibly entertaining even when it is at its most chaotic.
Funny, charming, and genuinely laugh-out-loud, I Love Boosters is a hell of a good time. Sure it is messy, a bit overstuffed, and occasionally buckles under the weight of its own ambition. But that is part of the film’s charm. But this is Boots Riley we are talking about. He consistently swings for the fences and refuses to sand down his edges. And even when it doesn’t fully come together, there is enough energy, humor and sheer personality to carry it through.
My Rating: A-
I Love Boosters comes to theaters May 22nd.
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