Joseph Moser
From its sly opening to its affecting denouement, “I Love Boosters” aims to entertain, challenge, and shock viewers. I applaud writer-director Boots Riley’s lofty ambitions even if the first half of the movie has flaws that sometimes threaten the overall cohesion of the enterprise. Around the midpoint, though, when two key supporting characters enter the story, the film’s focus on female friendship and worker solidarity gains clarity, endowing “I Love Boosters” with narrative momentum and thematic force. Currently showing at the Savoy Theater in Montpelier, this is a bold summer movie teeming with intelligence and heart.
“Boosters” unrelentingly skewers our capitalist society, culture, and economy. The main characters are technically criminals, but their misdeeds pale in comparison to the malfeasance of the wealthy and powerful characters in the film. Corvette (Keke Palmer) and her friends/partners Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige) operate a Bay Area boosting (shoplifting) and resale ring that helps pay their bills but puts them at odds with Christie Smith, the face and ruthless mastermind of the exploitative retail clothing chain Metro Designers. At the same time, the boosters have higher aims and seek a greater sense of connection and community beyond the confines of transactional capitalist relationships.
Although this setup is compelling, “Boosters” tends to lurch between eye-popping set pieces in the early going, sometimes at the expense of developing the booster main characters. Although Demi Moore’s late-career renaissance is marvelous to behold and she brings gravitas and menace to her role as self-aggrandizing corporate fashionista Christie Smith, the scenes at her architecturally absurd office and garish retail stores are some of the least interesting in the movie. Furthermore, Alina Kanin’s jaunty score sometimes overwhelms the interplay between the characters.
These gripes aside, I was delighted by the film as a whole. “Boosters” gets better as it goes along, in contrast with Riley’s previous film, “Sorry to Bother You,” which has a first half that is more character-driven and compelling than the latter, more genre-defined half. “Boosters” hits its stride once the characters Violeta (Eiza González) and Jianhu (Poppy Liu) join the scrappy band of thieves and inject profound angst, energy, and insight into the proceedings.
Violeta embodies the downtrodden (but exceptionally class-conscious) retail worker, while Jianhu gives the crucial perspective of the sweatshop peon. The boosters’ scheme takes on much greater significance once their plan to fleece Christie Smith is connected to the most egregious exploitation of the fashion industry: that of the factory employees’ lives and labor. In a sci-fi magical realist masterstroke, Riley juxtaposes the setting of the Chinese sweatshop where Jianhu and her family toil with the Bay Area retail fiefdom of Christie Smith. Another brilliant element of the film is the use of meta-cinematic interludes to present cheeky documentary background on Smith’s rise to power and the garment factory in China that fuels her empire.
Along with the dynamic lead performance of Keke Palmer as Corvette and Demi Moore’s effective villainous turn, the movie is a showcase for scene-stealing supporting actors, including the astounding Naomi Ackie as Sade, best friend to Corvette; the versatile LaKeith Stanfield as the enigmatic Pinky Ring Guy; the chameleonic Eiza González as erudite Marxist retail worker Violeta; the transfixing Poppy Liu as fearless Jianhu; and the venerable Don Cheadle, nearly unrecognizable as pyramid scheme impresario Dr. Jack, who insists that goodwill be monetized. Finally, I should disclose that two over-the-top gross-out scenes may polarize viewers, but though (very deliberately) shocking, they are relatively brief and far less disturbing than the sci-fi body horror elements of Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You.”
That “I Love Boosters” highlights the undeniable power of sisterhood and solidarity is reason enough to seek it out during this seemingly interminable age of crass corporate self-aggrandizement. In addition, against all odds, Riley has succeeded in making a funny and affirmative movie that smartly critiques capitalism.
“Boosters” left me feeling that someday maybe, just maybe, people around the world can join together in common cause to take on the avaricious forces that plague us.
“I Love Boosters” plays at the Savoy Theater in Montpelier through Thursday, June 4.
