Alex Strangelove

I'm glad a film featuring a gay lead has more raunchy, sometimes scatalogical humor. As a society we need to move on from tragic gay love stories and more fun comedies. As a 18 year old myself, Alex Strangelove depicts high school pretty accurately, and having made a student film similar to Alex Strangelove, complete with sex humor and absurd, surreal images, I think more people need to see it and it's great.

I really loved this movie. It was so sweet! Just makes you feel happy. It's interesting to see the struggles that someone may face while being a young, gay, high schooler. I also loved the way they showed his "girlfriend"'s side.They showed how his decisions and his actions were effecting her, which is not usually a side that gets much attention in a "coming out" movie. It was a great light hearted movie that made me smile and also made me cry.

What we have here is a personal story that feels a bit too personal. By that I mean it feels like it was made for a very select audience, perhaps even an audience of one. It's okay for filmmakers to create stories that mean a lot to themselves, but ideally they will mean a lot to many others as well.

That's what made 'Ladybird' so wonderful. That's a personal story that feels personal to everyone. It's so full of empathy that all viewers can connect with it and be genuinely moved by it. 'Alex Strangelove' never reaches those heights.

Plot-wise, here's the rub: Alex Truelove is a high school senior with typical high school senior problems. He is stressed about getting into the right college. He's stressed about school. He's stressed about figuring out this sex thing.

His friends tell him sex is no big deal, but for some reason it hasn't happened for him. He loves his girlfriend, and she loves him too, but he has been putting off that part of their relationship. She doesn't know why and neither does he. Or maybe he does, but he isn't ready to admit it to himself yet.

One night at a party, Alex meets a cool guy. Everything becomes harder and harder to understand. It's unclear to viewers, as it is unclear to Alex. He's on a journey to self-discovery. He just hasn't reached his destination yet.

Daniel Doheny (the guy who plays Alex) is terrific. He successfully plays the part at various times as charming, funny, awkward, confused and downright mean. It's a challenging role to pull off, and he hits all the right notes.

The actors who play Alex's girlfriend Claire (Madeline Weinstein) and the cool guy Elliot (Antonio Marziale) are both fine. They aren't as nuanced and realized as Doheny's Alex, but they don't stand out in a negative way.

The film's resolution leaves a bit to be desired. Some loose ends remain untied. It probably would have been better to never introduce those storylines in the first place. The script would've been tighter, and nothing crucial would be lost.

Overall, this is a funny and fun movie that's part 'Superbad' (because of the parties and foul language) and part 'Love, Simon' (because of the sexual self-discovery). But it isn't as good as either.

The film was cute and it was very genuine in how it portrayed teenage confusion over sexuality, but the biggest surprise was Madeline Weinstein. Usually the role of the girlfriend in this kind of story would be a secondary one, a small role without much depth, but I really appreciated that the main love story of this film turned out to be that of the lead guy and his best friend. Weinstein was perfect here. There were so many shades to her character and I felt like she was the most heartbreaking during the emotional parts of the film. She was in last year's Beach Rats and now she's proven she has endless amounts of charisma. I hope we see her in more things.

6/10 - I really wanted to like this movie, but as a lot of the Netflix ones do, this one fell flat