Written by Matt Swanson
With I Love Boosters, Boots Riley places himself in the conversation of the most imaginative filmmakers operating today. Riley made his directorial debut in 2018, with the bizarrely surreal satire Sorry to Bother You and I Love Boosters feels like a continuation of many of the same themes and ideas, but with more precision and style than in his debut film. The movie follows a group of women who shoplift designer clothes to sell them at a discounted price. It’s a story as old as wealth inequality: Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor. However, I Love Boosters distinguishes itself from other similar stories with its vibrant energy, absurd surrealism and pointed activism.
The film opens with the delightfully charismatic Corvette (Keke Palmer) selling stolen clothes and squatting in an abandoned chicken restaurant. She’s joined by a posse of other chic boosters, including Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige). Together, they make up the infamous Velvet Gang and they continue to gain notoriety for their uncanny ability to empty designer-clothing stores of all their overpriced goods. Corvette is an aspiring designer herself, dreaming of making art that would rival the prolific designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore), but she feels an unplaceable loneliness and anxiety in her current hustle. As the Velvet Gang continue their heists with some visually hilarious sequences, they cause enough of a disturbance that they are called out by Christie Smith directly. When she denounces them as “low-class urban bitches,” the Velvet Gang receive this as a declaration of war.
The gang decides to hit all of Christie Smith’s stores by getting hired under fake aliases and then emptying the stores before they know what hit them. However, their scheme is disrupted when someone mysteriously empties the store in minutes before they can act. It turns out the new thief is named Jianhu (Poppy Liu) and she uses a tool to help her steal clothes that pushes the film into the realm of science fiction. Jianhu works at one of Christie’s factories in China, where the workers are mistreated and exposed to health hazards. Seeking revenge for their exploitation, Jianhu is on a mission to hurt Christie as much as she can. With a shared motive, Jianhu teams up with the Velvet Gang, equipped with a new powerful tool to help them ruin Christie once and for all.
I Love Boosters is an incredibly stylish and fashionable film. Shots are draped in vibrant monochromatic colors, with the lighting, sets and fashion working together to make every frame feel like eye candy. Additionally, the score is masterfully constructed to have different themes for different characters, adding so much personality and depth to every moment. Keke Palmer also brings charming main-character energy in her lead role. She is a master of comedic timing in her delivery of the film’s best one-liners. She also demonstrates her range, balancing the humor with expressions of anxiety about a lack of belonging or purpose in a harsh and oppressive world. Along with all of the character-driven satire, Riley really leans into absurdity and surrealism in certain situations which either provoke laughter or appalled shock.
Given Riley’s outspoken political commitments, some viewers may worry that the messaging in I Love Boosters may be too heavy-handed and divisive to audiences. However, the film’s satire and criticism are pointed. It covers a breadth of social issues: elites stealing ideas from lower classes, the exploitation of the vulnerable for financial gain, the manipulation of people using controlled media messaging and corporations deciding what art and culture is. While the movie covers significant ground, all of its ideas feel narratively relevant. The film never oversteps into the realm of preachiness; it takes distinct social issues and satirizes them through a humorously absurd, visually surreal, and character-driven story.
Boots Riley’s first film, Sorry to Bother You, features a scathing satirization of capitalism in a Kafkaesque manner, portraying things as absurd and even fantastical to make its point. I Love Boosters pushes Riley’s commitment to absurdist social satires even further with a chic and trendy setting. For a sophomore film from Riley, it feels like the director is getting better and better at expressing his voice through the lens of absurd surrealism. He successfully tells a story full of chaotic energy and hysterical juxtapositions, all the while ending with a clear call-to-action against systems of exploitation that clearly matter to Riley.
