Alex Strangelove

The Netflix "Original Movie" algorithm is a cruel, fickle god. Back in 2018, the streaming giant was throwing money at anything that looked like a coming-of-age script, desperate to corner the market on teen angst. While hits like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before became cultural juggernauts, smaller, weirder gems like Alex Strangelove got shuffled to the bottom of the "Because You Watched" deck within a month. It’s a shame, really, because while the platform was busy churning out assembly-line rom-coms, director Craig Johnson—who gave us the wonderfully melancholic The Skeleton Twins—was busy making a movie that actually captures the frantic, sweaty, "I-have-no-clue-who-I-am" energy of being seventeen.

I watched this recently while my radiator was clanking like a ghost in a Victorian novel, and despite the distraction, I found myself sucked into the plight of Alex Truelove. Alex is the kind of kid who has a meticulously planned life: he’s a straight-A student, he’s got a great group of weirdo friends, and he has a girlfriend, Claire, who is essentially the human equivalent of a warm hug. He’s charming, gregarious, and seemingly perfect. But the movie rests on a ticking clock: Alex and Claire have decided it’s time to lose their virginities to each other.

The "Perfect" Script Gets a Glitch

The brilliance of Daniel Doheny's performance as Alex is that he plays the character like a man who is constantly checking a teleprompter that only he can see. He’s performing "Boyfriend" and "Popular Kid" with a level of intensity that signals something is fundamentally broken underneath. When he meets Elliott (Antonio Marziale) at a party, the teleprompter glitches. Elliott is older, openly gay, and possesses a level of self-assurance that Alex finds both terrifying and intoxicating.

What I appreciate about the writing here is that it doesn’t treat the "girlfriend" character as a roadblock or a villain. Madeline Weinstein is fantastic as Claire; she’s empathetic and sharp, making the stakes of Alex’s internal conflict feel genuinely heavy. This isn't just about a guy realizing he’s gay; it’s about the crushing guilt of realizing you’ve been unintentionally lying to the person you care about most. The movie treats teenage hormones like a high-stakes thriller, and in many ways, for a kid in a suburban bubble, that’s exactly what they are.

A Relic of the Streaming Boom

Released in the same year as the big-studio effort Love, Simon, Alex Strangelove feels like the grittier, sweatier cousin. It’s a product of that specific 2015-2019 window where Netflix was trying to bridge the gap between "indie Sundance darling" and "mainstream crowd-pleaser." Produced by Ben Stiller's Red Hour Productions, it has a polished look—thanks to cinematographer Hillary Spera—but it isn't afraid to get a little gross or uncomfortable.

The supporting cast is where the "comedy" half of the dramedy really lives. Daniel Zolghadri, Fred Hechinger, and Nik Dodani play Alex’s friends with a chaotic energy that feels authentic to teenage boy culture—lots of bad advice and questionable life choices. Fred Hechinger, who has since gone on to do great work in The White Lotus and the Fear Street trilogy, is a particular standout here. He has this face that looks like it’s constantly mid-implosion, which is perfect for a high school comedy.

However, because this was a streaming-only release, it lacks the "legacy" of a theatrical film. There are no box office numbers to point to, only vague "engagement metrics" that suggest it did well enough. In the current era of content saturation, movies like this become digital ghosts. They exist on a server somewhere, waiting for a bored college student to stumble upon them at 2:00 AM. It’s a movie that deserves better than being a footnote in the Great Streaming Wars.

Why It’s Worth the Digital Digging

Is it a masterpiece? Probably not. It occasionally leans a bit too hard into the "wacky teen" tropes—there’s a subplot involving a hallucinogenic frog that feels like it belongs in a much stupider movie. But when it focuses on the central trio of Alex, Claire, and Elliott, it hits nerves that most teen movies are too afraid to touch. It captures that specific contemporary anxiety of having all the "correct" information about identity and sexuality, but still being absolutely paralyzed when it applies to your own life.

The film handles the "coming out" arc with a refreshing lack of sentimentality. It recognizes that Alex is kind of a mess and that his journey involves hurting people he loves. That honesty is what separates it from the more sanitized versions of this story we often see. It’s a movie about the messy realization that your "perfect life" was actually just a very convincing costume.

Ultimately, Alex Strangelove is a sharp, funny, and occasionally heartbreaking look at the fluidity of identity. It’s a snapshot of 2018—a time when we were starting to have much more open conversations about representation, but before the "Netflix Formula" became quite so rigid. If you have 99 minutes to kill and you’re tired of scrolling through a sea of mediocre action sequels, give this one a shot. It’s a small story told with a big heart, and Daniel Doheny is a lead who deserves to be in way more things. Just be prepared for a little bit of second-hand embarrassment—it is high school, after all.