The Hollywood Reporter (Weekly)
I’m a Virgo
Boots Riley’s Prime Video series about a 13-foot-tall Black teen is a winning blend of superhero tropes and anti-capitalist satire
Eccentric billionaires are not heroes. That’s a key takeaway from Boots Riley’s dark comedy I’m a Virgo, a seven-episode, red-hot poker in the eye of the corporate establishment, produced for Jeff Bezos’ Amazon platform.
Few contemporary storytellers rival Riley when it comes to playful dogmatism, and I’m a Virgo wraps its anti-capitalist message in a thin casing that’s part superhero drama and part allegorical satire. Even if the show gives the impression of having a surplus of big ideas and a deficit of narrative through which to present them, the half-hour episodes amount to a singular vision of contemporary economic inequality and race that’s sure to provoke a variety of responses — including irritation from those more interested in the comic book wrapping than the substantive gift inside.
Jharrel Jerome ( Moonlight, When They See
Us) plays Cootie, a 19-year-old from Oakland. He’s been raised by his aunt (Carmen Ejogo) and uncle (Mike Epps) to shun the poison of processed food and the cultural poison of television. In fact, he’s never even left the house. See, Cootie is 13 feet tall and his guardians aren’t sure the world is ready for him.
But Cootie, like all dreamers, thinks he’s ready for the world, and when he sneaks out and encounters a group of teen activists (Kara Young’s Jones, Brett Gray’s Felix and Allius Barnes’ Scat), he’s thrust into the spotlight. Some people look at Cootie and see dollar signs. Others, including Flora (Olivia Washington), an aspiring chef and outsider in her own right, see him as a marvel. And, of course, others see him as a freak or a monster.
The latter group includes publishing magnate Jay Whittle (Walton Goggins). Whittle is the creator of a comic book character, The Hero, whose crusade for law and order finds him cracking down on petty crimes with a focus on perpetrators of color. When Whittle becomes The Hero in real life, Cootie, once a big fan, learns that he’s not actually so heroic.
The effects surrounding Cootie’s size are thrillingly resourceful, opting for a look of
DIY ingenuity courtesy of forced perspective, miniatures and even puppetry instead of the needless polish of CGI. Polish isn’t in Riley’s bag of tricks, and with the Sorry to Bother You director behind the camera for each episode, the potentially discordant elements — commercial parodies, scenes from an animated TV show, the visualization of Jones’ Marxist speeches — cohere with a rough-hewn charm.
Riley has surrounded himself with an eclectic writing staff including Tze Chun ( Gremlins:
Secrets of the Mogwai) and Michael R. Jackson ( A Strange Loop). The result is an intellectual collage, by turns childlike — with hints of a Roald Dahl-esque blending of the crude and folkloric — and more blatantly puerile (see: a wholly reasonable fascination with the consequences of a 13-foot-tall man having sex).
Riley clearly derives some amusement from critiquing, via Goggins’ character, the authoritarian streak that audiences hastily forgive in Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne. That said, it’s easy to tell the difference between the things that amuse Riley and the things that piss him off. He’s angry at a health care system that prioritizes profit over saving lives. He’s angry about soaring rents and the criminalizing of poverty. He’s angry about food deserts, predatory chain restaurants and a culture that makes people crave those things at the expense of their own well-being.
If anything holds the series together other than Riley’s ideology, it’s Jerome, who gives Cootie an innocent joy, a credibly awkward physicality and the simmering passion of an untapped revolutionary. Because of the amount of trickery involved in their interactions, it’s tough to say that there’s “chemistry” between Jerome and Washington, but it’s miraculous how well they sell a love story that could be silly or gross if given less care. Riley has much on his mind, but if viewers invest in this story — as I did — it’s because Jerome and Washington give it heart.
AIRDATE Friday, June 23 (Prime Video) CAST Jharrel Jerome, Mike Epps, Carmen Ejogo, Walton Goggins, Olivia Washington, Brett Gray, Kara Young CREATOR Boots Riley