A parody of dialectical materialism (you’ll understand what this means when you see the film), superficial economies, and the cult of fast fashion, I Love Boosters—the second feature from rapper, activist, and filmmaker Boots Riley—proves a spirited and hilarious comedy in its first two acts before falling back on action-comedy tropes in its finale. Perhaps there’s no way to fully sustain the gonzo energy delivered in its set-up, which initially offers a sharp critique of capitalism as biting as Riley’s debut feature Sorry to Bother You.
Opening at a nightclub in which Corvette (Keke Palmer) seduces a man into coming back to her apartment with heavily discounted clothing from top designers like Tom Ford, the film introduces us to the world of “Boosters.” This is a world known on earnings calls by CEOs of publicly traded companies as “organized retail theft.” The collective includes Sadie (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige), who proudly practice the “three Fs”: “Fashion Forward Philanthropy.” Yes, they understand how to spell, but it’s all about the branding. They are perhaps inspired by a smooth grifter played by Don Cheadle, who seduces his community into a pyramid scheme that they ultimately buy.
The pyramid scheme, they eventually discover, is capitalism itself—led here by “genius” Christine Smith (Demi Moore), a fashion magnate who eccentrically insists on offering only one color in each of her Metro Designers boutiques, a nod to Brandy Melville’s “one size” policy. Recalling the documentary Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion, Riley’s lens is focused on the practice’s environmental and labor costs, not to mention how workers are treated as fashion labels aim to move more vertically via boutiques. When the boosters (known in news coverage as “The Velvet Gang”) get hired by Smith’s local manager (Will Poulter), they find themselves directly in the belly of the beast, planning the “mother of all heists.” Things go sideways when Jianpu (Poppy Liu) arrives on the scene in a zany third act where the film starts losing steam.
A funny, often fascinating riff on aspirations both in and out of reach, I Love Boosters is ambitious and, like Sorry to Bother You, explores the systems that make the American Dream possible for only a select few. But the film is also a gleeful celebration of the underdogs scraping by as the cost of living increases.
I Love Boosters tackles myriad issues: branding, consumerism, labor exploitation, and the health and environmental costs associated with mass-produced fashion. Mixing in absurdist humor, Riley’s film morphs into an action-horror piece with mixed results, slightly losing its way as it attempts to wrap up many threads. Yet the film remains a work of innovation and invention, operating in its own unpredictable form until it can no longer sustain the premise. Still, it’s rare to find a film this uninhibited; I haven’t even mentioned LaKeith Stanfield’s soul-sucking demon, which produces one of the year’s funniest comic sequences.
I Love Boosters is an ambitious heist film at its core. It doesn’t always deliver or sustain the energy it generates in the first act, but as far as original, socially conscious films go, I’ll always take an imperfect product full of brilliant ideas over one with little substance that “sticks the landing.” Characters like Eiza González’s bored retail worker remain obsessed with the idea of dialectical materialism—the concept that a thesis and antithesis produce a new synthesis. I Love Boosters certainly sets the stage for a reframing of the concept that property is theft and fashion is often a means of control rather than individual identity. Like Riley’s debut, I Love Boosters is a provocative and unrestrained work, even if it goes wayward as it moves toward its final synthesis.
I Love Boosters premiered at SXSW and opens in theaters on May 22.
The post SXSW Review: I Love Boosters Finds Boots Riley Again Taking Dead Aim at Capitalism in Zany Comedy first appeared on The Film Stage.
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