Another film breaking the mold right up there with Black Panther…this time we ask just what is ‘normal’ when you’re coming of age in a digital world…and, you’re gay?
Love, Simon is delightful and exploratory much in the way Call Me By Your Name was nominated for this year’s Oscar. Though the latter had the safety of summer in Italy with hardcover books, bicycles and bucolic villages, both films address the long sought question for young gay men ‘Where is the love story…for me?’
Simon (Nick Robinson) claims to be a ‘normal’ teen with bedroom posters of Elliot Smith. He watches bad 90s films and gorges on carbs at Waffle House with his friends Bram (Kelynan Lonsdale), Leah (Katherine Langford) and Martin (Logan Miller). But he harbors a secret. While other teen boys sneak porn, he’s admiring the landscaper’s boots.
Homosexual Simon a.k.a. “Jacques” finds solace in online email banter with a fellow mysterious high school student, code name, “Blue.” We have no idea who Blue is, and neither does Simon, but “Blue” allows Simon to escape into his deepest and innermost secrets – comparing the hotness of Daniel Radcliffe and John Snow – the two feeling grounded in their back/forth missives, they accept who they are while exploring the nuances of sexuality in a safer way…behind a screen and keyboard.
Jennifer Garner has made a recent career as the super-sweet doe-eyed and forgiving mom, while Josh Duhamel plays the slightly off guard father – quirky and sometimes embarrassing – who might have to come to grips with his son’s sexual choices. Fortunately for all of us it’s not that movie. This is a film about high school taken to the next level. The internet, chat rooms, emails, texting, sexing, and faces buried in phones as they cruise the halls en route to homeroom. (And we thought stuffing our bras with toilet paper third period science class was our biggest secret.)
Ms. Albright steals the movie as the theatre director (Natasha Rockwell) with little tolerance for bullies of any kind. We could have all used a Ms. Albright in our day; her dialog as sassy as her production of Cabaret. The story with tones of Glee, is credited to director Greg Berlanti (Everwood, The Flash, Riverdale) and especially to its writers Isaac Apataker and Elizabeth Berger (This is Us). The ‘This is Us’ bit adds the cushy gentleness and reflection in off-setting a cruel world.
The events broaden on coming out in a present-day society where exposure can go viral and can hurt. While some students make stupid choices (like Simon’s friend Martin choosing to express his love to the girl who doesn’t want him) who has a right to expose someone who doesn’t ‘choose’ to be exposed? Where are the boundaries in the time of millennial chatter? High School, afterall, allows us to hold onto what we’ve always been just a little longer.
As Love, Simon comes to a close, the title of the movie will all make sense in a grand-romantic-gesture-of-an-ending. It’s only drawback from the get-go is if these kids are too cool for school, exposed to all on TV, internet and in a time of LGBT movements and transgender, why is coming out as nerve-wracking as in might have been in the 70s or even the 80s? Maybe being a boy doesn’t change despite a changing world around him. Maybe certain life experiences are still held dear.
Perhaps in the end in any and every generation, exposure is a big exhale.
This is love coming-of-age in the digital age. And let’s face it….Teen rom-coms are nothing without that happy kiss ending. Will there be one here ? This is a modern teen classic. Move over Ferris Bueller. 3.5 tiaras