Love, Simon

One reason I’m choosing to write about Love, Simon is because whether or not you approve of its homosexuality topic, after watching it, it's obvious that there’s going to more movies like it so I thought that it’s important to see if this movie will give us any clues of what’s to come.

Not the first of its kind

While there may be a lot more movies that follow in Love, Simon’s footsteps, Love, Simon is the not first of its kind. This movie is definitely similar to other coming of age films. I saw a lot of the big 80’s high school movies showing its influences such as The Breakfast Club and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (If you saw other influences, then feel free to comment on what you saw as I'm interested in your feedback.) What’s interesting about Love, Simon is that it actually stands against a lot of the stereotypes that can be found in the films before it. What made me hesitant about seeing Love, Simon is that it also isn’t the first coming of age film that’s anti status quo. There are other young homosexual movies out there, but they never did that well or got much success. Love, Simon is one of the first that has.

No squirming in your seat scenes

The reason for it predecessor’s failures, in my opinion, is that they’re intense, in fact they’re too intense. The topics that are prevalent in these movies are sensitive, so a common mistake is when these topics aren’t treaded lightly. I understand that a lot of people want these topics to be discussed daily and want others to see its importance, but you have to be careful, regardless. The goal of these filmmakers is to have topics like homosexuality and minority rights not seem alien and scary, but what ends up happening is that the audience becomes overwhelmed when baby steps aren’t taken. When the best and worst parts of the controversy are shown, the audience becomes intimidated, too heated to concentrate, and they forget that this movie is supposed to be entertaining. So to be frank, I was afraid that Love, Simon would have gay sex or have other scenes that would be hard to watch considering it would be teenagers involved. It’s not like I am against scenes like these because they can have a powerful message and there may be people in the audience who need to hear it, but provocative scenes aren’t the right call for this movie. You don’t want to scare people or make them feel uncomfortable. This needs to be a message that reaches everybody, not just the supporters, but they need to leave feeling satisfied too. As you can see, this is an extremely hard movie to pull off, so I had my reservations. But the biggest surprise is, this movie pulled it off. I was so thankful that this movie is not harsh or angry. It was entertaining and it didn’t need intensity or provocativity in order to get its message through. I’ll even say that it’s a movie of a generation for a lot of reasons, not just because the odds were against it but because I know this movie is going to give a lot of hope to a lot of young boys. It may also be the forerunner of a modern movement considering that most protagonists in the past have been straight and also considering that recently, coming of age films about minorities such as Moonlight and Lady Bird have been successful. I don’t think films like Love, Simon are going to stop coming either. Movies that get deeper into the subject can come later. For right now, Love, Simon is a fantastic start.

Let's talk about Simon

Simon is a really likeable character and I mean extremely likeable. He racks up a lot of empathy points whether you’re male or female, so props to Nick Robinson (the actor) for crafting himself into such a solid character, because he literally is the makeup of the entire movie. It wouldn’t matter how well the other actors do or if the movie is good technically, if Simon wasn’t not only believable but also relatable.

Modern day references

The movie also does well with keeping relevant which includes modern pop culture references such as a reference to Obama being in retirement. And, hats off to keeping the high school fairly consistent and not too dramatized. One of my favorite parts of the movie is that no character’s feelings are overlooked. Obviously Simon’s feelings aren’t in danger, but it is a huge achievement that most of the characters’ feelings are respected and are given representation when there are a fair amount of them. The monologues in the film were on-point as well as some of the verbal comebacks. The balance between drama and comedy didn’t seem too forced either. I would describe the transitions overall as breezy and even fun. If two characters mention a song in a scene, that song is then used for the transition. This keeps the audience lighthearted and keeps them from remembering that this movie is about a serious issue when the director doesn't want them to remember in that particular scene. It’s a good technique.

And the message is....

A done deal for me in a movie is how well it got its message through to me. I could definitely feel this one’s vibe. There were two main vibes I got. The first is about perception or rather, our limited view of it. This is easy to decipher since the movie is told from Simon’s point of view, we get to see some of his daydreams and fantasies, and he makes some decisions that he thinks our optimal until he steps back and gets some other characters’ opinions. The second message is of acceptance, not a lot of surprises there. If you’re hesitant about this movie because you’re afraid that political ideologies will be infringed on you or your teenage, don’t be. Although it’s true that the movie is fairly left-leaning, nothing is infringed upon the audience. It doesn't get up on your face and is loud in trying to get you to think or feel something such as a movie like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This movie actually only wants you to understand a point of view that maybe you can relate to. It’s not trying to get force anything. It’s just trying to widen the way you see people. There isn’t necessarily even a request to get up and do something, so I’m saying that you should give this movie a chance. It may be pretty important down the line.