His first feature film since 2018’s Sorry to Bother You unfolds in vivid contrast to a storied tradition of somber, serious political cinema, where established canon like Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men and Costa Gavras’ Z illuminate the hidden, sinister machinery that profits off alienation and division. Riley’s approach, however, is less a matter of cultivating a distinct style than it is the wild expression of a fundamentally different political, thematic aim.

 “The difference between those films and this is that my films aren’t about exposing oppression, or poverty, or corruption, or anything like that,” Riley tells RANGE, “My films are about class struggle.” He continues, “They’re about a thing we need to do, whereas those other ones, whether it’s intended or not, are about how little power you have.”

Riley reflects, “From my life, having been an organizer, getting someone depressed or angry doesn’t get people involved in anything… What gets people involved in things is the idea that there is a way to win—that’s optimistic and, in many ways, is joyful—so that guides what I do.”

As a result, Riley’s radically vibrant, stylistic patchwork of concepts, genres, and visuals becomes both a call to action and an act of defiance, deepening the film’s narrative cadence and class-conscious commentary. “I want people to engage with it in a certain way, to take it as more of a living document that’s not doing the usual thing, so they can’t be on automatic.”

Riley explains, “If I were to be like this person is sad and here comes the strings… It’s been done so much that we know the person’s sad and we go on automatic… So some of what I’m doing aesthetically is about showing texture, about dissonance, a certain rhythm… creating a visceral feeling in the viewer that is analogous to what the character is going through.”

He continues, “In using textures, collage, miniature, stop motion, all of these things, they’re practical in the camera so they feel a certain way but they’re also juxtaposed against one another, and that ideas keeps you on your toes and interacting with the film… So, hopefully, when it gets to one of them main points, you’re invested in a different way.”

The key to such an effect, and one of the film’s grandest feats, is that despite its wanton absurdity, it remains emotionally earnest and authentic—an honest, lived-in reflection of our troubling, deeply unequal times.

Riley notes, “One of the tools while doing all of that is to have grounded performances that are based in feeling real emotions as opposed to performing a heightened thing that the actors think looks right on camera. He continues, “There’s an artifice to some of the dialogue that’s like poetry, but then there’s grounded dialogue… What ends up grounding it is the fact there are motivations and factors that we see in our life all the time that usually get edited out of tens of thousands of films.”

Riley explains, “Part of what you’re seeing is this thing you know is real, that is just a fact of life because you’ve seen it around you, but it’s in the midst of all this aesthetically, thematically fantastical stuff but with these themes and motivations that are regular and normal.” He adds, “there are characters in [I Love Boosters] that in other things would be trying to take over the world and rule it, but these characters are just trying to make you think differently… It’s not all encompassing but just closer to reality.”

In making the absurd an authentic reflection of our lived reality, Riley finds fertile ground for biting class commentary in the lavish runways of the fashion industry. It’s a satire that evolved from being more general to, ultimately, hyper-specific and intimate. “I wanted to start off in the world of boosters, and where people are when they’re [stealing] clothes, and at one point, I was going to have the antagonist be a DA (District Attorney), because in a lot of these places, the DA is working with publicists to get people hyped up about shoplifting.”

Riley explains, “It’s more interesting for the antagonist to be someone that Corvette wants to be, so that made me think more about the general fashion industry… I wanted to talk more about it in reflection of the working class… because for many people what they wear is the closest thing to artistic expression.” He continues, “It may be like ‘look how unique I am, how safe I am, here’s my sexuality,’ or maybe ‘look what tribe I’m in’… so I wanted to talk about the basic idea of how things are not just made of things, but of people’s time.

In attuning to the most relatable, humbling perspectives amid a raucously zany ride, Riley not only cements an absurd film for an absurd time but also serves as a rallying cry. One that urges us to cherish the dreams, sacrifices, and tears poured into creating the objects we cherish. In embracing that joyful human element, Riley reminds us that where there’s hope, “there’s a way to win.”

I Love Boosters releases May 22nd.