Stream It or Skip It: ‘Alex Strangelove’ on Netflix, a Gay Teen Romance That’s Big on Sweetness

Alex Strangelove, the latest original film from Netflix, is a high-school set romantic comedy that seeks to recapture the magic of a genre that has been pretty anemic as of late. Leave it to Craig Johnson, writer/director of The Skeleton Twins to inject some life into the teenage rom-com with this story of high-school sweethearts who hit a roadblock when the boy figures out he likes boys. 

ALEX STRANGELOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Alex (Daniel Doheny) and Claire (Madeline Weinstein) spend the first half-hour of the movie meeting cute, becoming the best of friends, creating a YouTube series (sigh, 2018, I hate you), and ultimately realizing they were in love with each other. Adorable! A fine little short film about sweet high-school heterosexuals. Except [record scratch] nope! Alex meets Elliot (Antonio Marziale) at a party, and Elliot is fun and nice and gay and has a really dazzling smile , and suddenly our Alex is having feelings. It’s all very rudimentary, but the journey out of the closet starts with one baby step. So Alex needs to figure out what he wants: to lose his virginity to his best friend Claire or to take a step into the unknown with Elliot?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Coming out (er, so to speak) in the same six-month span as Love, Simon is interesting timing for a movie like Alex Strangelove. On the one hand, the mainstream popularity and marketing for Simon likely leaves viewers hoping for more movies about gay high-schoolers looking to come into their own. On the other hand, the one-two punch of both movies make their similarities (specifically that they’re both about white cisgender protagonists) and their shortcomings (they both suffer from a touch of the basic) feel more oppressive. Which is the wrong way to think about them; it should be celebrated that we’re (maybe; hopefully) getting a wave of middlebrow gay teen rom-coms. If Love, Simon feels like it belongs with the genre of YA faves like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, then Alex Strangelove is its gawkier but less glossy cousin, more reminiscent of those 1990s gay movies that feel both outdated and yet weirdly nostalgic these days.

Also, if we’re talking about stuff we’re reminded of: the adorable Daniel Doheny is a dead ringer for Bill Hader, who starred as the gay protagonist in The Skeleton Twins. If there’s any degree of Craig Johnson autobiography in either of those characters, you figure this is probably close to how he sees himself. Meanwhile, Antonio Marziale is a) a babe, and b) like if TJ Miller imagined himself as a total babe. Don’t ask me how such a thing can be true, it just is.

Performance Worth Watching: All three leads are actually really great. Doheny is dorkily believable as that kind of neither-cool-nor-uncool high-school kid who’s kind of a unicorn but you don’t resent him for it. Marziale is really good at flirting scenes and instantly makes you believe Elliot would be the boy to flip that switch in Alex. It’s not just that he’s cute or charming it’s that he’s cute and charming in that particular conspiratorial way that feels like a whistle only latently gay people can pick up on.

Not to be all self-hating about it, but I might just give best-in-show to Madeline Weinstein, who is very charming and relateable as Claire, the definition of a thankless character. It has to be such a bummer to play the female obstacle in a story about a teenage boy figuring out he’s gay. But Johnson’s script and Weinstein’s performance are both incredibly generous to Claire. The result is a very real portrayal of the relationships between gay teens and the girls they date/come out to. Sometimes the truth is traumatic, sure, but sometimes that bond between them becomes something else.

Memorable Dialogue: Kathryn Erbe does brief, strong work as Claire’s mom, whose illness informs the periphery of Claire’s character. At one point, when Claire is bemoaning some selfish thing Alex has done, Mom delivers this piece of wisdom: “We’re not gonna be on this Earth forever and being angry is an exhausting way to spend your day.” Stitch that on a pillow and stare at it every time you think about logging onto Twitter.

Single Best Shot: While there are some pretty looking on-location scene in the movie, this isn’t a feast for cinematography or anything. Still, it has its moments. Like when Alex first meets Elliot and his friend Gretchen at a high-school party. They’re tucked away in a bedroom the rest of the party hasn’t discovered yet, smoking weed and getting to know each other. There’s a shot of the three of them, a little bit stoned and lying on their backs, forming a kind of suburban starfish on the bed, all nearly touching each other, that uniquely high-school intimacy where you can all crowd on a bed and discover a person with your clothes on. It’s an evocative scene.

Sex and Skin: Alex and Claire’s attempts to have sex for the first time are both funny and decently frank, even while avoiding nudity. The sexual charge between Alex and Elliot is intense, but their big moments are a steamy first kiss and sweet dancing moment, but they don’t get a sex scene (unfortunately).

Our Take: Alex Strangelove is the kind of movie we should get more of: the no-frills, zippily written romantic comedy about young people of varied sexual orientations. One character for each level of a Kinsey scale, toss ’em into an advance-placement class, and see where the chips fall, I say. Alex Strangelove isn’t going to rewrite the rules of romantic comedies for queer people. It’s not even going to fill in the gaps that Love, Simon left unfilled. For as celebrated as that movie was, there was a sizeable segment of gay tastemakers who bemoaned the film’s lack of nerve and milquetoast-y main character. For a second there, it seemed like Alex was going to say something cool and modern about pansexuality or bisexuality, but that quickly gets papered over, which is too bad.

Alex Strangelove feels slightly more ragged than its mainstream counterparts, yes, but still pretty standard. A movie like this ought to be the baseline. The 27 Dresses of gay high-school rom-coms. Perfectly fine, but not spectacular. We’re still holding out for spectacular.

Our Call: Stream It. We’re still waiting for The Great Gay Romantic Comedy — maybe we’ll always be waiting for it — but in the meantime, this is a likeable, flirty, sweet teen comedy.

Stream Alex Strangelove on Twitter