I read the book and I looked forward to seeing the film. The book is almost 500 pages long and filled with a lot of text and e-mail messages so I knew it would have to be cut back for a film or TV series. It's a Greg Berlanti production and I've been impressed with his films and TV series.
I wasn't impressed with the script or the casting. Berger and Aptaker who wrote "Love, Simon" and "Love, Victor" or John Butler who wrote and directed "Handsome Devil" would have written a better script IMHO and I wish Greg Berlanti or John Butler directed it. Galitzine and Perez are both very handsome young men, but too old for the parts. In the book Henry is a year out of Oxford and Alex is a senior at Georgetown, so they'd be in their early 20s. I've seen Galitzine in other films: "The Beat Beneath My Feet", "Handsome Devil", "Purple Hearts", "Cinderella"...he's an experienced young actor. While I saw Perez in "The Kissing Booth 2 & 3" and "Minx". I like both of them as actors. Sarah Shahi and Rachel Hilson have some great lines.
I didn't care for Uma Thurman in this role, part was her acting and her accent and part was the direction. A lot of it looked like it was filmed on a sound stage with green screen, the tiny Oval Office and the fake balcony of the White House. Some scenes looked more like they belonged on a theater stage than in a movie, the film director was a stage director. Most of the book takes place in the US, don't know why it was filmed in the UK.
Some scenes worked very well, some scenes not so well and some scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. The scene when Alex is in his rooms at Kensington Palace having arrived to do damage control and Henry walks in looking for Cornetto's, it got cut but we got part of it in a teaser trailer. That's a scene that should have been kept and Alex's campaigning in Texas could have been cut back. We didn't need talking heads Rachael Maddow and Joy Reid, it made it hyper partisan instead of staying with the basic love story.
Rather than a 2 hour film with a lot missing from the book, a mini series of two or three 90 minute episodes would have worked much better. It's not the quality that I expected. I highly doubt this will ever be remade, so this was it.
I wasn't impressed with the script or the casting. Berger and Aptaker who wrote "Love, Simon" and "Love, Victor" or John Butler who wrote and directed "Handsome Devil" would have written a better script IMHO and I wish Greg Berlanti or John Butler directed it. Galitzine and Perez are both very handsome young men, but too old for the parts. In the book Henry is a year out of Oxford and Alex is a senior at Georgetown, so they'd be in their early 20s. I've seen Galitzine in other films: "The Beat Beneath My Feet", "Handsome Devil", "Purple Hearts", "Cinderella"...he's an experienced young actor. While I saw Perez in "The Kissing Booth 2 & 3" and "Minx". I like both of them as actors. Sarah Shahi and Rachel Hilson have some great lines.
I didn't care for Uma Thurman in this role, part was her acting and her accent and part was the direction. A lot of it looked like it was filmed on a sound stage with green screen, the tiny Oval Office and the fake balcony of the White House. Some scenes looked more like they belonged on a theater stage than in a movie, the film director was a stage director. Most of the book takes place in the US, don't know why it was filmed in the UK.
Some scenes worked very well, some scenes not so well and some scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. The scene when Alex is in his rooms at Kensington Palace having arrived to do damage control and Henry walks in looking for Cornetto's, it got cut but we got part of it in a teaser trailer. That's a scene that should have been kept and Alex's campaigning in Texas could have been cut back. We didn't need talking heads Rachael Maddow and Joy Reid, it made it hyper partisan instead of staying with the basic love story.
Rather than a 2 hour film with a lot missing from the book, a mini series of two or three 90 minute episodes would have worked much better. It's not the quality that I expected. I highly doubt this will ever be remade, so this was it.