Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You , in limited release on July 6th, is easily one of the best films of the year. Somehow effectively combining the nightmarish clerical surrealism of Franz Kafka, the impish punk rock weirdness of Alex Cox, the colorful naughtiness of John Waters, the dark social satire of Jonathan Swift, and the righteous social indignation of Spike Lee, Sorry To Bother You emerges as one of the most original, striking, enervating, wickedly funny, singular, and perhaps most important feature films of the last 15 years.

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It is the near future (as far as I can tell), and everything is just crappier. The world is overrun by a corporation called WorryFree which offers a worry-free life by taking away all your possessions and placing you in “company housing,” which is essentially a prison where they keep wage slaves. Lakeith Stanfield plays Cassius “Cash” Green, an impoverished, money-obsessed African-American Oaklandite who lives in his uncle's garage, and whose dreams of providing a better life for himself and his girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) border on the pathological. Detroit, meanwhile, (barely) makes ends meet by selling art, and keeps her soul alive by engaging in bizarre political performances and Banksy-style graffiti. They have a few conversations early in the film, wondering if the pursuit of wealth is really all life has come to. In a world where wealth is commonly confused for virtue, this is an important conversation to have.When Cash takes a job in a dingy, low-level call center, his soul is certainly already withering. The call center is a nightmare in fluorescent tubing and over-enthused bosses who speaking nothing but Corporate English, and Cash finds himself at the losing end of just about everything. Luckily, his cubicle-mate (Danny Glover) offers him a piece of advice: If you want to make sales, use your “white voice.” Cash's “white voice” (provided by David Cross) not only grants him success in sales, but will eventually move him “upstairs,” a mythic place where workers are cartoonishly placated (an elevator speaker system offers syrupy encouragements to employees about their personality and sexual virility), and where they are massively overpaid. Of course, the upstairs offices are openly up to something that is deeply unethical.The commentary is, of course, that corporate America openly flaunts its workers and happily exploits their company-owned button-pushing meatbots so that the higher-ups – represented by golden child Armie Hammer – can continue to have vapid sex parties in their mansion attics. But there's a lot more going on than the usual middle finger to The Man. Sorry to Bother You also points out the potential futility of revolution (an attempt to unionize, led by Steven Yeun, reads as instantly doomed), the tidal movements and uncontrolled spread of viral fame/infamy (who gets paid for inventing memes?), the sad and perhaps all-too-real exploitation of the African-American work force (you can only be successful if you use your “white voice”), the importance of art (perhaps one's only release), and the hope we all secretly have of eventual overthrow by the underrepresented (the film ends with... well, I'll let you discover that).But even if one doesn't groove on the salient politics of Sorry to Bother You, they will certainly be swept up in the bright liveliness, filmic daring, and cynical humor of it. Stanfield's Cash Green is a deadpan comic hero for a dark world, and Tessa Thompson is as engaging as she's ever been; between this film, Annihilation, and Thor: Ragnarok, she is proving to be one of the more compelling screen actresses of her generation. When Cash and Detroit move from a small bedroom to bigger one, the set literally reconstructs itself around them via an astonishing sequence of practical effects. When Cash talks on the phone, his desk literally falls through the floor, and he pictures himself in the room with his customers, unintentionally inserting himself into their lives.Boots Riley, from the Oakland-based hip-hop collective The Coup, has adapted for film every last piece of confrontational outrage that his music has been celebrated for. Critics patiently await moments like this, when a new voice with a unique vision explodes onto the movie scene and provides audiences with something they may not immediately know what to do with, but will be grateful for. It's wonderful that a moment like that may be upon us.