Noah Hutton’s techno fable lays bare the indignities of modern gig work – but dadaist touches blunt its edge
This sensitive but flawed sci-fi comic dystopia walks the strange new frontier of the modern gig
economy that has also been explored by Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You and Nomadland. It takes place, like Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, in an innocuous present tinged with an Instagram-filter of light futurism. And it is driven by a similar sly ideological fury as Sorry to Bother You – only it is even more absurdist and, crucially, not as funny.
A rare case of an
Actor whose real name fits the role even better, Dean Imperial plays Ray, an old-school denizen of
New York – complete with wifebeater and tinted shades – forced to seek out lucrative new work in order to put his brother Jamie (Babe Howard) into a clinic to receive treatment for a weird fatigue syndrome called Omnia. Despite being a technophobe who shuns the quantum computing revolution sweeping the world, he accepts work as a contractor laying “quantum cable” in remote areas for comms giant CABLR. Signing on to the app that assigns him routes, grinning and bearing the patronising tech-empowerment speak (“Challenge your status quo!”), Ray starts getting dirty looks from his co-workers when he reveals the username that has been assigned to him: Lapsis Beeftech.