'Love, Simon' A Review

Love, Simon is a teenage romcom about closeted high school senior Simon(Nick Robinson) and his mostly "normal" life with his solid friends and supportive family. When an anonymous student posts on a PostSecret style blog that he's secretly gay Simon strikes up a correspondence with him and shares his own thoughts, feelings, and problems and the two grow closer. After Simon leaves this email exchange up on the library computer it's discovered by Martin(Logan Miller), resident nerd/creep, who blackmails Simon. In order to not be outed Simon has to manipulate his best friends Leah(Katherine Langford), Abby(Alexandra Shipp), and Nick(Jorge Lendeborg Jr.). As the lies stack up Simon reaches his breaking point.

Robinson is expertly cast giving Simon dimension and charm but also an understated, laid back energy that makes him a little blank, easy to see ourselves in. His friends all do decent jobs although Shipp is the only one given much dimension, Lendeborg has very little to do, and Langford's character functions almost totally as an outgrowth of the lead. Even so it is Simon's story and the time is, purposefully, spent else where. Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel, and Talitha Bateman as Simon's mom, dad, and sister respectively are all understated in an easy, light, emotionally plugged in kind of way. And Tony Hale as the kind-of-hip kind-of-clueless Vice Principal offers some much needed levity and reality when the film drifts into taking itself to seriously.

The biggest issue in the cast and in the film is the character Martin and Logan Miller who plays him. The seeming villain is given a mystifying amount of the story's time and energy, the writing and portrayal are contradictory and beyond confused, stereotyping psuedo-nerdy activities and interests while having the character transparently and disgustingly utilize leverage Simon's sexuality in a display of cruelty that is incongruous with what we're shown. The script takes cheap shots at the character(close up magic is lame, his shirts are dumb) while also asking us to feel for the kid(a ludicrously scored and acted diner scene, an embarrassing declaration in front of the school) and yet there is no real justice, no real explanation of his bogus plot-driven motive. It's makes no sense and detracts from the whole.

What is so refreshing and fun about the film is that it is mainstream. The town is kind of picturesquely upper-middle class and diverse. Even the bullying feels somewhat idyllic. Every kid's room is enormous and unbelievably thoroughly decorated, every parent is nurturing and understanding. It takes place in the nameless non-existent everytown that teen movies are always set in along with the appropriate and catchy pop song driven soundtrack. It's an entertaining story, its a relatable story, and its a coming out story. It normalizes in a way that prestige drama isn't able to. The film is more pervasive, will most likely reach more movie goers than 2017's less palatable, less honest Call Me By Your Name.

Groundbreaking in representation if not necessarily cinema.

See It.