‘Coming out’ stories can be particularly difficult to do well because they’re often a study in contrasts and conflicting sensibilities that don’t benefit from leaning too hard in any particularly direction.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t movies out there that do just that.  Urbania (2001-Dir. Jon Shear) and Parallel Sons (1995-Dir. John G. Young) are two particularly effective stories that manage to end up more than the sum of their parts.

The same thing applies to stereotypes and stereotypical behaviors.  And while it’s worth mentioning that stereotypes are typically based on a reality, more often than not it’s a skewed, distorted one.

Off the top of my head, three great examples of the genre (more accurately a sub-genre) are Head On (1998–Dir.Ana Kikkinos), The Way He Looks (2014–Dir.Daniel Ribeiro) and 4th Man Out (2015–Dir.Andrew Nackman).

All the movies in the prior paragraph are available on Netflix, by the way.,

Love, Simon (directed by Greg Berlanti, an openly gay man) has a pretty good trailer, but one can easily see where the potential to fall into pathos and cliche lie.

Let’s hope it doesn’t.