I Love Boosters (2026)

I saw I Love Boosters over the weekend, and despite having watched the trailer approximately seven thousand times before other movies in theaters, I still walked into this one having absolutely no idea what to expect.

To be fair, when you see Boots Riley attached to a project, “completely normal and straightforward” is probably not the expectation anyway. And true to form, this movie is definitely not interested in realism, subtlety, or explaining itself in ways that make you feel particularly grounded.

This thing is weird.

Not bad weird. Intentionally weird. The kind of weird where halfway through a scene you stop trying to understand every symbolic choice and instead just surrender yourself to the experience like someone floating down a very stylish river.

I had a pretty good time with it.

One of the biggest strengths of the movie is absolutely the cast. I kept laughing to myself every single time another unexpected actor showed up onscreen because the lineup here is incredible. Everyone feels perfectly calibrated to the bizarre tone of the film, particularly Demi Moore, who fully understands the assignment.

The performances never feel like actors trying to make weird dialogue sound normal. Instead, everyone commits completely to the heightened reality of the movie, which is probably the only reason the whole thing works as well as it does.

Visually, though, this movie is where I was the most invested.

The fashion, the production design, the bold color palettes, the exaggerated environments, all of it felt incredibly intentional and striking. There are so many moments where the movie almost feels more like stepping into a surreal art installation than watching a traditional narrative unfold. The use of color especially stood out to me because it creates this dreamlike atmosphere where everything feels just slightly detached from reality in a way that supports the themes of the film really well.

Now, did I fully understand every single thing this movie was trying to say?

Absolutely not.

There were multiple scenes and characters where I found myself thinking, “I’m pretty sure this symbolizes something important, but I could not explain it to you if my life depended on it.”

And I think that’s part of the point.

The movie is packed with symbolism and social commentary, particularly surrounding capitalism, consumerism, power structures, image, and identity. But it presents those ideas in such an exaggerated and surreal way that you’re often left interpreting things emotionally rather than logically. Some viewers are probably going to find that fascinating. Others are going to leave the theater deeply annoyed and wondering what exactly they just watched.

I can completely understand both reactions.

Because this is very much the kind of movie where your enjoyment depends on your willingness to let go of needing everything to make literal sense. If you’re someone who prefers tightly structured narratives where every detail is clearly explained and every storyline resolves neatly, this may not work for you at all.

But if you’re willing to suspend disbelief a little bit and just exist inside the strange, colorful chaos the movie creates, there’s actually a lot to enjoy here.

At times, it felt less like watching a plot unfold and more like watching someone’s fever dream about modern society projected onto the screen with a very large costume budget.

Which I mean as a compliment.

I also appreciated that even when the movie became confusing or overly abstract, it never became boring. There’s always something visually interesting happening, some strange interaction unfolding, or some wildly unexpected line delivery that keeps your attention locked in even when you’re not entirely sure where things are headed.

Overall, I wouldn’t necessarily call I Love Boosters a universally accessible movie, but I do think it’s one of those films that’s much more enjoyable if you stop trying to “solve” it and instead just let yourself experience it.

At minimum, it’s one of the more visually memorable theater experiences I’ve had recently.