I saw Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You in 2018 and have been trying to figure out whether I liked it or not ever since. After half a decade I am erring on the side of “yes”, though it’s definitely one of those films you don’t want to be the first person to say something about as you leave the cinema (“That was definitely a – yeah. Uh, well, yeah, it was a film”). A wonderful cast, a startlingly inventive seed of an idea that sprawls into something huge, horses … There was a lot going on.
And now here’s another thing by him. We’ll start with what it’s about, and then we’ll hem and haw about whether it’s good or not: I’m a Virgo is a new Prime Video series (from Friday 23 June) where Moonlight’s Jharrel Jerome plays a 13ft-tall teenager, Cootie, who has lived a sheltered life behind high walls and hedges and fences with his strange and protective adoptive parents. Then he busts out – wouldn’t be much of a story if he didn’t, would it? – and gets up to all sorts of coming-of-age-style shenanigans, only obviously he is banging his head on way more things. Jerome is wonderful: he plays the role so sweetly – huge and bashful and vulnerable but powerful – and there’s a lot more going on than camera trickery, prop work and “He’s tall, look!”.
