In “I Love Boosters,” the latest outsize comedic provocation from Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You”), everyone is looking for a way out of something: a job, a uniform, the trappings of a toxic relationship. Everyone is trying to crack the code of a system that they are a cog in. While the word booster is a slang term for a shoplifter, in the film it can also be seen as a method to propel oneself out of that broken system.
In telling its story of strivers who shoplift the clothing of a high-fashion designer (Demi Moore), the movie employs surreal and abstract methods — including some sci-fi metaphysics and even some Claymation. But it is grounded by the performances from its ensemble of women, who make their struggles feel real amid the madness. That includes Keke Palmer, who plays Corvette, an aspiring designer and the lead of the shoplifting crew called the Velvet Gang; Taylour Paige as Mariah and Naomi Ackie as Sade (rounding out the initial Velvet Gang trio); Poppy Liu (Jianhu, a Chinese activist working for better conditions in sweatshops back home) and Eiza González (Violeta, a Latina activist who often implores the shoplifting gang to go for more than just clothes).
Earlier this month, four of the cast members, Palmer, Paige, Liu and González, gathered at The Times for a lively conversation about how they turned weighty issues into comedy and how they navigate online criticism. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What was it like to work as an ensemble on “Boosters,” a film that has so many different twists, where you all have to stay together through them?
TAYLOUR PAIGE Well, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, as you can see. I just wanted to say that. No. It was so much fun. We bounced off each other’s energy.
[Loud chattering from the castmates followed by laughter]
POPPY LIU It really was giving, like, early pop summer camp.
EIZA GONZÁLEZ Keke determined a tone and an energy on set. She’s a star but when we say star it is not like a diva, she is a leader.
PAIGE It was already all on the page, and I think we all obviously responded to it, but [Riley] creates this world, and then you bring it.
KEKE PALMER I feel like he also let us expose in these characters the way that we’re all surviving; what it means to be under capitalism. Poppy’s character is like, I’m a straightforward activist. Taylour is like, I’m going to find the fun and the joy. I’m going to be in fantasy land because that’s safe for me. Naomi is, like, “Look, I gotta worry about my kids and make sure they are all right.” My character is structured and I’m going to strategize my way to the top.
LIU The themes are big, but every character, their objective is actually so close to home and human. They are not thinking of themselves as revolutionary. Jianhu is such an activist but she doesn’t think of herself as that. You’re just living your life in your circumstances based on your own world. She has to be an activist in real time just because she sees people around her suffering and is like, “I want to do what I can to change it,” which ultimately is what activism is.
How do you approach this material that looks down the throat of capitalism in fashion while also being a part of an industry driven by capitalist instincts?
PALMER There is a running joke in the movie where we keep saying “nuance, nuance,” and that’s how it feels. It is like an Andy Warhol painting. There is tons of commentary on pop culture but he also is pop culture.
PAIGE We all love fashion, appreciate it, respect it. It employs people. It’s aspirational. It’s beautiful to be surrounded by luxury. Like, who doesn’t want that? But also on the backs of who? It’s like, to what end?
PALMER It is so true! There’s so much in the world that’s good that comes with it. I mean even this. (Picks up her iPhone.) This is a revolutionary product but who made it and what did they have to go through to make it?
GONZÁLEZ Nirvana is never going to exist. The movie is about bringing up awareness on a lot of subject matters.
PALMER It’s actually critiquing the contradiction that lies in capitalism.
LIU Maybe it’s not dismantling the whole system. That can’t be done necessarily in our lifetime or who knows how many lifetimes, but you can make the corner of your world a little bit better.
The Velvet Gang is a group of women of color in which one is looking to get her designs out, but Christie Smith [Demi Moore] steals them. The others are looking for their own justice as well. How did you use your roles to depict the injustices that plague your characters’ communities in real life?
PALMER I mean, it was as easy as one, two, three because it’s happened all the time. In the last few years, we’ve had a crazy thing with the Black Lives Matter movement in terms of, not necessarily the movement itself, but like, Black lives being literally murdered right in front of us. We had actual places, salons being shot up, where people are actively having Asian hate. We had a president literally send hate toward the Chinese community. And then we have actual Latinx community — Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan, everything, being picked up from the streets. It’s very easy to tap into it. It’s like it’s right in front of you!
There is also a romance aspect in the movie, LaKeith Stanfield plays the somewhat vampiric love interest of Corvette. What significance did you find in that in the context of the movie’s themes?
PALMER Under this capitalism, under feeling this pressure, we unfortunately are finding recognition in pain and suffering before we are in our actual embodied selves. I think, sometimes these connections are unfortunately happening. They’re not happening from a state of freedom, they’re happening from a state of oppression. When somebody is meeting you at your lowest or you’re unfulfilled, they are not really meeting you. She (Corvette) is afraid of him because he’s validating the dark side of her.
PAIGE I thought there was levity to it, even though it’s quite serious.
GONZÁLEZ You just want to be seen so badly. It is like this experience of trying to be seen and then revealing yourself. That act is the most revealing and then someone’s sucking the life out of you.
The feedback the movie has gotten, mostly on social media, is that it promotes stealing because it’s a heist movie. What do you have to say to the people who see this movie so flatly?
PALMER We ain’t for those people, you know what I’m saying? It gets to a point where everything ain’t for everybody. These are the people that probably don’t even believe in what the movie is about. So it’s like, you don’t really care.
GONZÁLEZ Give yourself a chance to watch and see what you take out of the movie.
PAIGE To profess your art is a sacrifice because it doesn’t always mean that people are going to feel you, but at least have decorum when you disagree. It is really hard to make a movie. It is really hard to have thoughts. It is really hard to put things on a page and have originality. That’s the win, and it’s OK to disagree, but let’s bring back critical thinking, because us not being able to critically think is actually the real threat.
Sandra E. Garcia is a Times reporter covering style and culture.
The post The Cast of ‘I Love Boosters’ Want You to Think Critically appeared first on New York Times.
