I’m a Virgo, Amazon review — surreal life and times of a 13ft tall teenager

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It can be hard to feel like you fit in as an adolescent, not least when you’re self-conscious, sensitive and 13ft tall. 

I’m a Virgo, a new seven-part series on Prime Video, is an unreservedly weird, mostly wonderful comedy about the life of an outsized teenager created by rapper-turned-director Boots Riley. Like his acclaimed, outré film debut, 2018’s Sorry to Bother You, it uses surreal imaginings to bring the absurdities of modern America into sharp relief. Yet this latest effort feels both richer and (relatively) more accessible — its big ideas and jagged social satire are supplemented with physical humour, heartfelt emotion and affection for its characters.

For all its oddities, the show begins as a fairly recognisable coming-of-age tale full of exhilarating firsts. Cootie (a winningly winsome Jharrel Jerome) may have physically outgrown his home as an infant — as seen in a very funny opening montage — but as a 19-year-old he now feels more cramped and constricted than ever. His fiercely protective adoptive parents have kept him isolated behind suspiciously high garden walls and imbued him with worries. “People are going to try to figure out how to use you,” warns his father (Mike Epps); his mother (Carmen Ejogo) meanwhile keeps a scrapbook of human cruelty.

Initially this seems to be nothing but pessimism and paranoia. When Cootie’s curiosity eventually gets the better of his natural reserve and nurtured diffidence, he discovers his hometown of Oakland to be a welcoming world of myriad pleasures. Friends introduce him to burgers and subwoofers. A girlfriend, Flora (Olivia Washington), helps him figure out who he is and the complex geometry of sex. Skyscrapers give him a rare sense of perspective.

Emboldened and encouraged by his experiences, Cootie vows to use his size “to do something important”. Instead he winds up working as a living mannequin for a streetwear brand, Riley’s terrific instinct for visual gags intersecting with his anti-capitalist convictions about a grinding system that cynically commodifies and exploits individuals, especially young black men. Later we see how quickly fetishisation mutates into vilification, as Cootie is dragged through town in chains by a mogul-cum-vigilante called “The Hero” (Walton Goggins) after taking part in a leftwing protest. 

But if there are moments when Riley makes his point as unmissable and unsubtle as a 13ft colossus, there are other times when the story seems unable to keep up with the stormy whirl of its writer’s brain. The more throwaway observations and offbeat digressions — including a cartoon show-within-a-show — that the series tries to cram in, the more it can feel overwhelmingly restless and unfocused. But if it falls short of being a truly towering achievement, I’m A Virgo still has an abundance of niche appeal.

★★★★☆

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video from June 23