TV Review - Love, Victor (Pride Month)

Love, Simon (2018) was the first film by a major Hollywood studio to focus on a gay teenage romance. It was the first gay teen rom-com to get a wide release. It was a great step forward in terms of representation. However, my criticism of that film is that it simply was another coming-out narrative, a narrative that has been done to death in a myriad of previous films. Given that Love, Simon was the first major Hollywood release on the subject, the coming-out narrative could be forgiven. Unfortunately, the film suffered from being more about all the straight people around the gay person and less about the gay person even being gay. In fact, if the gay person never said he's gay in voice-over, you'd never know that he was, except for a moment at the very end when he kisses another boy. Yet, delaying an actual depiction or expression of same-sex attraction and physical affection until the very end and only briefly was highly frustrating and unsatisfying, especially if you are a LGBTQ person in real life.

When it was announced that this series would basically be a sequel to that 2018 film and pick up where the film left off, it was an assumption that there would no longer be delaying of depicting same-sex attraction and physical affection. In other words, in a series about a gay person, we would actually see that person being gay. After watching the ten episodes of this series, it's sad to report that this is not the case. If Love, Simon was two steps forward in LGBTQ representation, this one is three steps backward. After the film was essentially a coming-out narrative, this series is again another, coming-out narrative. Despite being a sequel, we don't really advance any of the ideas. We spend ten episodes only to end up at the same place where we were in 2018. It's years later, yet we're going back and re-doing the same thing we did before. It's again frustrating and unsatisfying if you watched the 2018 film and were hopeful for some advancement, beyond some additional crumbs in the LGBTQ representation category.

Michael Cimino (Annabelle Comes Home) stars as Victor Salazar, a 16-year-old, Latino from Texas. He moves with his family to Atlanta, Georgia. He goes with his father, mother, sister and younger brother. He's a bit shy but not that much. He's also a bit of a jock. He likes to play basketball and is actually fairly good at it. During his first day of school at Creekwood High, he learns about the story that ended the 2018 film, which was Simon Spier's very public coming-out. Victor finds Simon on Instagram and decides to message him. Victor admits to having thoughts and feelings that lead him to suspect he's gay, but, because he comes from a religious, Latino family, Victor doesn't want to admit it.

Each episode starts and ends with the messages that Victor sends to Simon and the messages that Simon sends back. We hear both of them in voice-over reading those messages. Victor tells Simon about his life, his questions and confusions. Simon tells Victor reassurances and affirmations of love and understanding of Victor's burgeoning homosexuality. Unfortunately, those affirmations don't stop Victor from engaging in a heterosexual relationship with a young girl he meets.

Rachel Hilson (This Is Us and The Good Wife) co-stars as Mia Brooks, the daughter of a wealthy man who runs a university. She's a black girl who is in the same grade as Victor. She takes a liking to Victor because he's a nice guy, but also because he doesn't make any sexual advances toward her. They get along and have some common interests, but it becomes obvious that there's no sexual chemistry or spark there. However, various melodramatic issues involving her single father springing a new woman on her, as well as other issues keeps them from breaking up.

If one has seen another independent queer film called Alex Strangelove (2018), there are similar dynamics and plot developments here as in that other 2018 flick. Except, Alex Strangelove was a better film because it actually depicted same-sex attraction and physical affection between two boys more than here, which actually doesn't take much, and it's actually not that much more, but still it's more than we get in this ten episode series.

George Sear (The Evermoor Chronicles) also co-stars as Benji, a classmate at Victor's school, but he works as an assistant manager at a coffee shop. He also is part of a music band. He's also openly gay. Obviously, in a series about a gay kid, you need another gay kid with whom he's obviously going to fall in love or for whom he's going to develop feelings. Benji is that person here. Obviously, there's going to be some obstacle that keeps them apart. In Love, Simon, that obstacle was the identity of the gay kid all together. Simon's love interest was completely anonymous. He never knew what he looked liked, nor his actual name.

That's not the case for Victor, so instead, the writers here, Isaac Aptaker & Elizabeth Berger, have concocted a lame and cliché obstacle, that of Victor's relationship with Mia. It would be one thing if this series were an actual exploration of bisexuality, pan-sexuality or sexual fluidity, except it's not. In the LGBTQ community, there is the Q, which can mean "questioning," or applicable to someone who is unsure of their sexual orientation or doesn't strictly identify with any of the LGBT labels. Again, that's not really Victor's problem. He knows what his identity is. He just doesn't want to admit it, which makes sense to a point here, but falls off rather quickly, and it becomes clear that Victor's relationship with Mia is there only to be an obstacle and not a true expression of someone who is a Q. At one point, a character in Episode 10 says "hot girl with secretly gay boyfriend is tale as old as time," which is the writers acknowledging the lameness of Victor and Mia.

Also, Victor has a naivete about him that feels like he's attending high school in the 90's than someone who is attending high school now. Yes, the presence of the Internet is something that is acknowledged and mobile phones are something every teenager here has, but it feels like nobody uses the Internet in any way that makes sense or the way that teenagers would. In the film José (2020), a teenage Latino uses his mobile phone to hook-up with other gay men in secret. Presumably, he uses Grindr, but, for some reason, this series makes no mention of it. There's also Pornhub and the idea that Victor wouldn't explore pornographic images to see what turns him on or not is unrealistic.

This series was originally pitched for Disney+, so it was probably restricted from leaning into the actual sexuality. I wasn't expecting something in the vein of Showtime's Shameless (2011), which depicts a very intense sexual relationship between two teenage boys, but, this show could have done something on the level of FOX's Glee (2009). Arguably, that series didn't give its gay character a love interest until the second season, but that was a decade ago. Clearly, this series has the potential to really delve into a same-sex relationship, if it continues into a second season. Yet, as it stands now, the series feels regressive or a step behind.

The other characters to a degree behave in ways that feel contrived and feels as if the characters are only doing what they're doing because the writers want them to arrive at a particular point. This is particularly true for Bebe Wood (The Real O'Neals) who plays Lake, the best friend of Mia. She's the sassy girl who is mostly the comic relief. She has a crush on Andrew, played by Mason Gooding (pictured above), the son of Cuba Gooding Jr. Andrew is the tall jock who actually has a thing for Mia. Lake though is also being pursed by Felix, played by Anthony Turpel (The Bold and the Beautiful). Felix is the nerd of the group. Between these characters, it feels like checkers being moved across the board in predictable ways. It's obvious who's going to hook-up with whom. These kids would have other options and others in their orbit, which the show acknowledges but then behaves as if the characters on the call sheet are the only ones that matter.

If you're curious about the series, the first six episodes are rather inconsequential. You can just watch episodes 7 to 10 and get all the main points. Episode 8 is probably the best because  it takes Victor out of the main environment and makes progressive steps beyond the 2018 film. It featured a cameo appearance of Jason Collins, the former NBA star who is now openly gay. Collins should have had a more prominent role. It also featured Keiynan Lonsdale who reprises his role from the 2018 film and is more wonderful here than anyone else in the whole series. Nick Robinson also reprises his titular role from the 2018 film, but his role felt supremely shoe-horned.

Shout out to James Martinez who plays Armando Salazar, the father to Victor. He says some homophobic things throughout the show, which is odd because the first few times I saw Martinez were in gay films, namely Brother to Brother (2004) and BearCity (2010). Armando and his wife Isabel, played by Ana Ortiz (Devious Maids and Ugly Betty), have a secret. I hoped that secret would be that one of them is gay, which would have made things way more interesting, but alas, that isn't the case. Yet, I did enjoy watching them throughout this whole thing.

Rated TV-14-DL.

Running Time: 30 mins. / 10 eps.

Available on Hulu.