LOVE, SIMON (12A, 110 mins)
GREG Berlanti directs the first teen rom-com, financed by a major Hollywood studio, which centres on a gay lead protagonist and deals openly with their sexual identity.
Based on the awkwardly titled young adult novel Simon Vs The Homo Sapien Agenda by Becky Albertalli, the film introduces us to Georgia high student Simon Spier (Nick Robinson), who is blessed with a close-knit group of friends, supportive parents Jack (Josh Duhamel) and Emily (Jennifer Garner), and a lovable younger sister Nora (Talitha Bateman).
Unbeknown to his nearest and dearest, Simon is wrestling with his sexuality and hasn't mustered the courage yet to come out to them.
One of Simon's best friends, Leah (Katherine Langford), shares some shocking news: one of the students at the school has posted an online message about his sexuality on a noticeboard under the moniker Blue.
Simon responds under his own pseudonym, Jacques, and confesses that he too is closeted and gay.
The young men continue to exchange messages, unaware of each other's identities, until a classmate called Martin (Logan Miller) discovers Simon's secret and blackmails the terrified student into getting him a date with good friend Abby (Alexandra Shipp) in exchange for his silence.
THOROUGHBREDS (15, 93 mins)
MEAN girls mean business in a lip-smacking psychological thriller of cruel intentions and unscrupulous personal advancement set in the rarefied surroundings of suburban Connecticut.
Written and directed by debutant Cory Finley, Thoroughbreds saddles up for a brisk canter through familiar terrain but quickly unseats us with some unexpected twists and a slickly conceived script laden with gallows humour.
Rich kid Lily Reynolds (Anya Taylor-Joy) grows increasingly annoyed by the way her stepfather Mark (Paul Sparks) struts around the house, bullying her weak mother (Francie Swift) into submission.
She shares her frustrations with deranged friend Amanda (Olivia Cooke), who suggests the solution would be to murder Mark. "If we did this, we would need to be far away with airtight alibis."
The young women hire a small-time drug dealer called Tim (Anton Yelchin) to break into Lily's home and kill the stepfather, making it look like a burglary gone wrong.
The plan starts off swimmingly but Tim's unreliability creates a host of new problems for Lily and Amanda.
