Netflix’s ‘Boots’ is a banal coming-of-age tale with a Hollow Corps | TV/Streaming

Basic training in the United States Marine Corps is a lonely affair. So lonely, in fact, that 18-year-old Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer, “13 Reasons Why”), the central protagonist of the new Netflix series “Boots,” frequently has conversations with his hidden queer self. Although dressed the same, Cope’s hidden persona is direct, witty, and encouraging, while the Cameron the outside world sees is scared, a little slow to react, and sincerely thought the Marine Corps would be like summer camp. “When we said we needed a change,” Inner-Cam says wryly to Outer-Cam, as they sit on their bunk bed, trying to catch their breath after strenuous exercise, verbal abuse, and constant threats of physical violence, “I meant San Francisco or New York. But that’s okay too!” It’s a little different when you realize your job is to learn how to follow orders and kill people.

Inspired by The Pink NavyGreg Cope White’s memoir about his enlistment and service as a Marine hiding his sexuality, the series alters White’s story in order to tell Cameron’s. White enlisted in the 1980s; Cameron joins us, along with his best friend Ray (Liam Oh), in 1990, hoping to take advantage of the Marines’ so-called “buddy system.”

The story also delves into the backgrounds of all the other boys — because they are real boys, with still-developing frontal lobes — who join the platoon, including twins John (Blake Burt) and Cody (Brandon Tyler Moore), whose determination to succeed in the Marine Corps is a goal born from two traditions: horrific abuse throughout their lives and family enlistment since Eduardo (Jonathan Nieves) is a lover who greatly misses his beloved, Gloria, and is determined to succeed as the man she deserves. Hicks (Angus O’Brien) is Vincent D’Onofrio’s Private Leonard Lawrence from “Full Metal Jacket” reborn, but faster and happier. Ray is also the son of a Marine Corps member whose idea for treating his son’s severe anxiety disorder was to skip the doctor’s appointment and let Ray mow the family’s lawn with a ruler and a pair of scissors.

Cameron also comes from a family environment that is the opposite of supportive and loving. His mother Barbara (Vera Farmiga, unsurprisingly flawless) is so far removed from being a current mother that when Cameron informs her he’s headed to USMC basic training, she simply says, “Stop for milk. Fat free. Or 1% if they have it.” One of the things “Boots” does best is highlight how all the recruits’ parents have created conditions for their children to seek an environment where every part of their personality is stripped away and destroyed, to build a person who will not question orders, who will stand in line, who will view testosterone-charged unity as the pinnacle of human emotion. Because all belonging – even that which results from fatphobic/homophobic/racist insults, physical/verbal abuse, or rejection due to mental illness – feels good in the face of persistent and painful uprooting.

It’s not that “Boots” doesn’t deliver compelling performances. Farmiga, as previously stated, is impeccable. It’s really no surprise that she played a young Livia Soprano with such ease in “The Many Saints of Newark”; her scenes as Barbara are such a captivating blend of light and dark that I would happily watch a spinoff limited series about how Barbara became the distant, but still somewhat self-aware and ultimately guilt-ridden mother she is today. Heizer finds some nice rhythms as someone who has come to terms with her sexual orientation but is stuck in an environment where self-discovery comes at the expense of hiding. (In a way, “Boots” is an intriguing companion to “Overcompensating,” a more modern tale about the consequences of hiding a basic fact about oneself.) Max Parker gives a stunning, layered performance as Type-A drill instructor Sergeant Robert Sullivan; it was a shock to realize that Parker is English, because there isn’t even the slightest trace of an accent in his terrifying speech.

Unfortunately, “Boots”‘s flaws come from two very different creative decisions. First, although the series is based on White’s memoir about his time as a closeted Marine, Cameron Cope is not the focus of the story. There are mentions of the inherent campiness of Marine Corps life: the nudity, peers masturbating in showers at night, grown men growling at you to “Get in!” ” And “Boots” could have used a lot more of that inherent humor. Instead, various other characters are used to explore, in White’s words, “who can be considered an American, who can be included in the story.”

But it’s an incredibly optimistic view of history presented by White and his colleagues. The American armed forces do not recruit from the wealthy and middle classes; As represented by the show’s characters, they specifically target young people whose family lives and economic prospects are hopeless, making it inherently a skewed view of “who qualifies as an American.”

Second, it was Norman Lear’s last project as executive producer before his death in 2024; he also mentored White for many years. As a result, there is a more biting tone to the writing thanks to Lear’s memorable sitcom background, which does not fit the subject matter. Showrunner Andy Parker, who had military recruiters come to his house when he was a teenager to convince his parents to let him enlist, said he “never wanted to [the series] be an element of propaganda for the army”, but he also did not want it to be an “aggression against it”. Trying to play both sides, “Boots” falls flat tonally.

The message, it seems, is that all drill instructors are basically good people, that they’re just following orders to be verbally cruel because that’s how you get good soldiers, and that no one in command is actually homophobic. Little time is spent on how easily those whose lives have been dedicated to repression are manipulated. This leads to an oversimplification of what military life actually was and is for queer service members, despite the creators’ best intentions.

All eight episodes were screened for review.