Boots Riley’s newest film “I Love Boosters,” released May 22, is an excellent example of outside-the-box storytelling, telling a comedic journey of shoplifting while simultaneously enlightening viewers on modern factory working conditions. The movie does this all while delighting audiences with surrealist works of fashion and quirky character personality.
After watching “I Love Boosters” I immediately began to draw comparisons between Riley’s most recent work and his 2018 directorial debut, “Sorry to Bother You.” In that film, Black telemarketer Cassius (LaKeith Stanfield) adopts a “white voice” which allows him to climb up the ranks at a company called RegalView, later getting hired at WorryFree where he adopts their soulless policies while union strikes demand better working conditions.
Both movies maintain their own hyper-stylized appearances and satire to tighten the focus on modern working conditions. While “Sorry to Bother You” focuses on technological monopolies and uses elements of psychological horror, Riley’s new film deals with the fashion industry, offering viewers a significantly more cartoonish take.
“I Love Boosters” focuses on a crew of titular boosters, or shoplifters, stealing high-end fashion to sell at cheaper prices for their community. Led by the resourceful Corvette (Keke Palmer), the group begins their efforts to get back at the well-known designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore) for calling their actions “low-class” and “urban” after a video of one of their boosts goes viral.
Despite beginning as a petty dispute between these women and the rich designer, the movie connects its plot to a much deeper issue of worker treatment in the fast fashion industry. As labor exploitation and company greed becomes more prevalent in the news, this movie serves as a statement piece of how workers are exploited globally.
After the boosters find a video of a girl stealing with a seemingly endless, magical vacuum, they find her and try to strike up a deal to work together, using the vacuum to steal from all of Christie’s shops. The girl, Jianhu (Poppy Liu), tells them she is a worker from a Chinese factory that supplies Christie’s shops with clothing, explaining the working conditions are horrible and her coworkers’ efforts to unionize have been shut down.
We learn Jianhu arrived in the United States using a teleportation device the Chinese government had been secretly constructing, adding another note of randomness and chaos within this movie. But Riley gives this wacky invention more depth, as we learn the Chinese government only constructs this device to avoid global shipping costs.
On a surface level, the movie was absolutely and stunningly wacky in all definitions of the word.
I wholeheartedly adore movies which take a stylistic approach that I’ve seen many movies fail to achieve, even if that means taking a risk. The film industry can be quite literally packed with movies which are too serious, and I often find myself choosing random, odd films for a surprising kick.
That isn’t to say that intensely emotional movies fail to impress me, but my heart will always belong to the absurdist kind of films which take creative liberties just because they can.
For example, on every different heist in “I Love Boosters,” the crew wore different outfits which encompassed a collective theme. In one, they were adorned with flowers. In another, they dressed in bright neon colors with fur boots. I was here for it as the girls became real-life fashion dolls while making themselves known to the heartless corporate Christie.
Another aspect I enjoy in films is when they blend multiple styles of media, and for “I Love Boosters” that meant integrating with elements using Claymation. The constant recurrence of a giant rolling ball of trash, made with Claymation and stop motion, intermittently acted as a cutaway for Corvette.
This ball felt like it was made to represent the struggles of daily life and the massive weight of modern capitalism. To me, the ball’s massive size of an amalgamation of trash exemplified consumerism’s toll on the environment as well as society. I noticed that whenever Corvette becomes extremely stressed about her financial survival, the ball was present.
Symbolically, this ball rolls toward Corvette at the end. Gradually becoming smaller as they help take down Christie’s money hungry fashion show, starting global labor strikes advocating for better workplace treatment. At the end, the ball appears so small that Corvette can pick it up, realizing she is in control of her own life.
The movie’s display of unfair labor conditions and treatment within the Chinese factories and Christie’s own shops felt incredibly relatable. Within my experience working for a commercial coffee branch, I have felt the effects of company decisions which take little consideration of the stress those choices place on their employees. And I have known and been treated similarly by people like Grayson (Will Poulter), who acts as the uptight manager for the film’s focus store.
His appearance became quite amusing as he forces music to blast through the store, claiming its “corporate policy,” making him unable to hear his employees. He even forced them to buy Christie’s newest line of outfits as their work uniforms. Despite being heavily dramatized and absurd, I could feasibly imagine a real person like this.
I might be biased in saying that “I Love Boosters” is one of the best fashion-centric movies I have seen. If you are a fan of the odd, interested in the discussion of modern labor and commercialism issues or just enjoy daring fashion, I heavily recommend this movie.
