Boots Riley Film Deconstructs Capitalism
Writer-director Boots Riley kicked off the 40th SXSW film and television festival in Austin with a surreal, hyperpop love letter to creatives living under capitalism.
In I Love Boosters, Corvette (Keke Palmer), Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige) squat in an abandoned chicken restaurant while they make a living by stealing designer goods and reselling them around the Bay Area, quickly becoming a thorn in the side of fashion mogul Christie Smith (Demi Moore).
When Christie calls out the “low-class urban bitches” and steals one of Corvette’s designs, they plot to boost the designer’s entire inventory, which sparks a movement among retail and factory workers.
Eight years after his debut film Sorry to Bother You, Riley knocks it out of the park with another absurdist, stylized take on modern society, as Palmer’s performance grounds his writing to its real-world implications, perfectly complimented by Ackie and Paige as a group of thieves that puts the “Bling Ring” to shame.
The film is rounded out with some memorable supporting performances from the likes of Poppy Liu as a Chinese factory worker seeking her own revenge; Eiza González as a punk retail worker with plans to unionize; Will Poulter as her flamboyant, boot-licking store manager; and LaKeith Stanfield as a pretentious model who has a sinister past.
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True to Riley’s style, the camp factor is evident in every frame, from Christie’s penthouse apartment that sits on a steep angle to the sci-fi elements that pull no punches and the entire physical transformation of Don Cheadle as he operates a pyramid scheme.
For the effects, Riley went old-school, using claymation for a band of fashion minions that have undergone surgery for the sake of style, in addition to a car chase acted out with miniatures on a scaled model of San Francisco streets (while filming took place in Atlanta and Louisville).
In I Love Boosters, Riley successfully captures the hopelessness of our current capitalist dystopia, in which the rich get richer while destroying the world, and the rest of us just want a chance to do something meaningful.
Title: I Love Boosters
Festival: SXSW (Headliner)
Distributor: Neon
Release Date: May 22, 2026
Director-screenwriter: Boots Riley
Cast: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Demi Moore
Running time: 1 hr 45 mins
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