Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) goes by Cash. “Is Cash Green?” he jokes to his girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), in an “Is the Pope Catholic” kind of way. “Yes it is,” she replies, and they kiss. Money and its inflection through race—Cash himself is not green—is at the center of Sorry To Bother You, a madly inventive dystopian comedy from the musician Boots Riley. Green starts the movie totally broke, living in the garage of an uncle who is himself facing foreclosure. He is diffident, hunched over. But when he gets a job at a telemarketing company called RegalView, his prospects start to change.

In the first of many magical events, Green discovers a preternatural ability to speak in a “white” voice (David Cross). All his cold calls turn into business wins. His floor manager is a white man with an anarchy symbol tattooed on his neck—a former radical now indoctrinated and interested in indoctrinating others. The manager dangles the carrot of “upstairs” in front of Green. Up there, the manager explains, are the “power callers.” Those employees use a special elevator. They make the big deals.

As Green’s white voice propels him up the ranks at RegalView, he bounces into other scenarios that are eerily like real life, just a little off. The power caller floor is laid out like a typical coworking space; open plan, lots of concrete and wood. But when the team gets together on a multi-level seating area—like a cross between stoop steps and bleacher benches—it becomes apparent that the levels are off. Some of the employees are standing in mid-air, basically. The surreal wrongheadedness of this company is built into the furniture.

Green’s guide through the upper echelons of RegalView is an unnamed, eyepatched man played by the brilliant Omari Hardwick. “Mr._____,” as he’s credited, speaks only in his white voice, and encourages Green to do the same.

To the growing concern of Detroit and Green’s best friends, who now include a union organizer called Squeeze (Steven Yeun), Green cannot resist the power caller paycheck even though he is selling deeply unethical products. RegalView is connected to a hideous corporation called WorryFree, a “lifestyle” company that in fact invites the poor to work under a lifetime contract, for no wages, living in barracks. But Green needs to help out his uncle. How can he join a unionizing effort that aims to improve pay and conditions for the telemarketers, when his own family is in trouble?