Love, Simon
Director: Greg Berlanti
Writer: Elizabeth Berger, Isaac Aptaker,
Based on: Becky Albertalli‘s novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Cast: Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel, Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, Logan Miller, Keiynan Lonsdale, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Talitha Eliana Bateman
Seen on: 12.7.2018

Plot:
Simon (Nick Robinson) could and should be living a care-free life. He has a nice family (Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel, Talitha Eliana Bateman), great friends (Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) and school is going pretty well, too. But there’s one thing that is weighing on his mind: Simon is gay. He has never told anyone. When another boy comes out as gay under the pseudonym “Blue”, Simon starts messaging him – an exchange that has far bigger consequences than he ever thought.

Love, Simon is a cute, feel good movie that would be pretty run of the mill if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s about a gay teenager. It could have been more revolutionary, but we also need the sweet, inconsequential stuff in queer and not just in straight, so I definitely enjoyed it.

Love, Simon really touched me a few times and was also very funny, so the emotional ride – while neither going to good nor bad extremes – was worth going on and made the time pass very quickly. And it really nails the Coming Out topic, touching on many issues surrounding it: how hard it is to do it, even when you got the nicest family and friends who you believe to be supportive; how hurtful it is to be outed against your will; how much really hinges on it.

Robinson does a great job in the role and gives Simon the necessary emotional depth to pull off all the intricacies of Simon’s journey throughout the film. Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner are great, too – but they also have wonderful roles that make it easy to shine.

I think the biggest disappointment to me was that all the promotional material I saw of the film beforehand gave away who Blue was. Since the film is built on a search for Blue, this is kind of frustrating.

But fortunately the film doesn’t need you to be surprised (in fact, even if the reveal hadn’t been given away before, it is likely that you’d guess who it was anyway). It just needs you to go along for the ride. And it makes that ride easy and comfortable, so why not lean back? It’s true that the film could have been more substantial, but I didn’t mind that it wasn’t.

Summarizing: Nice.