Cheap Movie Tuesday: I Love Boosters (2026)

It’s Cheap Movie Tuesday!!!

So once again, I am forbidden from discussing the Devil Wears Prada 2, which cost over $100 million to make.

Instead, I’ll review the considerably more intelligent, considerably more funny and considerably more frugal fashion movie, I Love Boosters.

I Love Boosters is written and directed by Boots Riley. It’s his follow up to 2018’s Sorry To Bother You. ILB isn’t a direct sequel to STBY, there are no recurring characters or situations and yet, in many ways, it is the same story.

This is not a bad thing.

It’s a great thing, truly.

Sorry To Bother You took place in a dystopic economy where telemarketing was the only remaining form of employment. All other jobs are taken by WorryFree, a company that convinced people to become slaves in exchange for a permanent food and shelter.

I Love Boosters doesn’t feel as dystopic as Sorry to Bother You. This might be because it’s a lot funnier, but it could also be because the economy has decayed so much in the last eight years that I Love Boosters doesn’t feel like science fiction at all, not even when the heroes start using a teleportation device.

The Plot: At a busy nightclub, Corvette (Keke Palmer) ignores the glances of handsome Pinky Ring Guy (LaKeith Stanfield) and invites Based Young Dude (Jermaine Fowler) back to her place.

Dude totally thinks he’s hooking up, but once he’s in Corvette’s apartment, she tries to sell him clothes.

He protests.

Corvette lets him know there will be no sex and that he would be an absolute moron to turn down these clothes at the price she’s offering.

Based Young Dude can’t argue with this. He buys a pair of shoes.

Corvette is a ‘Booster’, someone who shoplifts clothing and sells it at a discounted rate. She’s part of the ‘Velvet Gang’ which includes her friends and fellow Boosters, Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige)

Finding it harder and harder to evade mall security, the trio decide to get retail jobs at luxury clothing store, Metro Designers, and bide their time until the right moment comes for a fashion heist.

But someone beats them to it.

Jianhu (Poppy Liu) has what appears to be a magical backpack that can vacuum up the entire inventory of a flagship store in seconds.

Determined to know her secrets, the Velvet Gang confront Jianhu and learn that she is a worker from a Chinese factory that makes Metro Designer clothes. Jianhu was protesting for better pay and less hazardous working conditions.

When both demands were cruelly rejected, Jianhu stole the teleportation device Metro Designers uses to avoid paying shipping fees and teleported herself to America. She is now on a mission to teleport all Metro Design product back to China until her demands are met.

The Velvet Gang decide to help Jianhu and are very successful, but soon they attract the attention of the movie’s villain, ruthless fashion mogul, Christie Smith (Demi Moore).

It’s so great to watch Demi Moore play her role so purely evil, particularly after watching Meryl Streep’s sentimental take on a similar character in The Devil Wears Prada 2. Moore doesn’t bother with nuance or layers, she performs Christie Smith like she’s trying to make Amazon, MGM and Sony all deeply regret not casting her as Skeletor.

Production Designer Christopher Glass deserves an Oscar for creating Christie Smith’s office, which is on an angle so step that everyone but Smith is in constant danger of falling out the window.

But the movie belongs to Keke Palmer. She’s always been incredibly funny but I Love Boosters is the film that where she gets to play a hilarious comic lead and has the hair and wardrobe to match.

As I mentioned earlier, this movie has a lot in common with Sorry To Bother You, but not in a way that feels repetitive.

In Sorry To Bother You, Steven Yuen had a great role as someone trying to form a telemarketers union. In I Love Boosters, Eiza González plays a Metro Designers employee who also has unionist aspirations, but there’s much more to that story this time around.

WorryFree does not appear in this film, instead there is ‘Friends Being Friendly’. I won’t spoil what that is, except to say that it allows Don Cheadle to give one his best performances ever.

There are no mutant horse people in I Love Boosters, but there is something similar, yet totally different.

I Love Boots Riley’s commentary on modern income disparity. It’s never obviously stated, but it is clear that Boosting thrives in this world because it is the only way many people can afford clothes. There are no customers in any of the Metro Designer stores we see, no one can afford to shop there. Somehow, this is of no importance to Christie Smith.

Now that I think of it, there is one detail I Love Booster’s has that seems completely different from Sorry to Bother You and that is LaKeith Stanfield’s “Pinky Ring Guy” character. This character has a secret you probably won’t guess, but let me know if you do.

The Tea: I Love Boosters call for David’s Tea Blood Orange Boost Tea, a refreshing and invigorating blend of matcha and dark red citrus. However if you foolishly chose to watch Backrooms instead of I Love Boosters last weekend, you can go sip Adagio’s Tea of Regret.

The Snack: The bright red candy of your choice. Swedish Berries would be my choice, but any bright red candy works. You’ll know why when you see the movie.