The protagonist of this charming, sharply observed comedy isn’t struggling with the usual queer-coming-of-age issues. Charlie, a New York college student on the cusp of his twenty-first birthday, has a supportive circle of friends, caring parents, and enough self-confidence to scrawl his phone number on a napkin and slide it to a studly brunch server.

It’s his inflated expectations about romance that Charlie is having trouble coming to terms with. He yearns for the movie version of love. But he finds himself, time and again, blindsided by disappointment as he stumbles through the minefield that is urban gay dating: the cruel insensitivity of Grindr culture, the vague and confusing rules of open relationships, and the infuriating flakiness of his twentysomething contemporaries. As the idealism of this cinema-loving romantic is called into question, Prom King, 2010 charts, with wise humor and frank honesty, his halting but inexorable course toward maturity.

Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Christopher Schaap (who also stars as Charlie), this charming homage to New York gay life represents a distinctively Millennial take on the classic coming-of-age tale, though Gen X-ers and Boomers will find it just as easy to relate to its wry observations. Told with a sexy, of-the-moment indie sensibility and laden with humor and authenticity, Prom King, 2010 offers a fresh — and refreshing — perspective on young gay romance, as well as new insights into the concrete jungle of easy flings and all-too-short attention spans.

— MICHAEL J. LOPRESTI