I’m a Virgo is a deeply weird and quite wonderful tale of a giant baby, Cootie, born to unseen parents and raised by his aunt and uncle as he grows to be a 13ft tall young man. From such a premise, you can go anywhere and creator Boots Riley – in only his second ever screen outing, since his film Sorry to Bother You debuted in 2018 – does.
Cootie (Jharrel Jerome, who played Korey Wise – one of the wrongly convicted Central Park Five – in the fiercely heartbreaking When They See Us by Ava DuVernay) is raised in secret, seeing the world only through television, comic books and occasional glimpses over neighbours’ hedges. Eventually, his yearning for friendship – and fast food – overwhelms him and out he steps, to the horror of his aunt and uncle (Carmen Ejogo and Mike Epps) who know what the dangers outside are for young Black men, let alone those in giant form.
Cootie quickly finds good friends in car-loving Felix (Brett Gray), easygoing Scat (Allius Barnes) and passionate community organiser Jones (presumably inspired by Riley’s own journey from music into communist community activism, and played by Kara Young). Through them all we get not just a sweet coming-of-age story for the isolated boy-man but interrogations of race relations, capitalism and the cracks rapidly opening into abysses between the haves and have nots. This becomes especially clear when tragedy strikes, Jones’s activism intensifies and Cootie’s guardians arm themselves for a coming war against their boy.
It is all done with the deftest of touches, via a stylised aesthetic that suggests Wes Anderson crossed with Heath Robinson (forced perspective, puppetry, miniatures and other inventive tricks rather than CGI are used to convey Cootie’s size). Magical realism, absurdism, Brechtian bits and Walton Goggins as the heir to “a modern computational instruments fortune” and comic book writer – who has styled himself as a superhero called Hero – makes I’m A Virgo a singular vision. Even before you get to Goggins dancing in his pants to Wichita Lineman.
The show moves surely from light to dark and back again. Fast food doesn’t live up to its promise but the beautiful girl serving it opens up a whole new field of exploration. When he and Flora (Olivia Washington, rounding out an ensemble cast full of offbeat characters that somehow synchronise perfectly) finally start going out, they have an extended sex scene that is outstripped in its bizarreness – because all the problems you are imagining are there and must be solved – only by its tenderness. Flora has a secret of her own that is as fine a metaphor for the female – and maybe especially Black female – experience as Cootie’s ability to arouse public fear and anger is for that of the young Black male demographic.
I’m a Virgo is as fresh and invigorating as a cold shower. It wakes you up, makes you alert, makes you engage with it in a way few dramas do by giving you something boldly, undeniably different. And vigorous and clever and fun and performed by a young cast who seem to be already at the top of their games. And if it has more ideas in it that it has time to develop fully – well, what a complaint to have. Diamond shoes too tight – all of that. It’s got style, substance, conviction and it deserves more time. But for now seven barrelling, glorious episodes will have to do.
• This article was amended on 26 June 2023 to correct the first name of actor Mike Epps.
I’m a Virgo is on Prime Video.
