Love, Simon (2018)
Directed by Greg Berlanti
Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier, it's a little more complicated. He hasn't told his family or friends that he's gay, and he doesn't know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he's fallen for online.
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What critics say influenced Love, Simon
But unlike the mostly-white, suburban enclaves of movies like Sixteen Candles, the students and teachers of Love, Simon feel a little closer to the real thing.
And if the title recalls the British romantic-comedy smash “Love, Actually,” it’s for good reason, although “Love, Simon” has more in common with those cherished but overrated films of the late John Hughes (“Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” “The Breakfast Club”) than those of Richard Curtis.
It’s filled with familiar coming-of-age milestones, developments and emotions, and characters that could’ve easily jumped from Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off into the 21st century.
Love, Simon doesn't quite reach the heights of teen movie classics like Say, Anything..., Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Clueless, Mean Girls or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it comes close enough to be one of the best American romantic teen comedies in recent memory.
All the other “Grease” and “Sixteen Candles” archetypes are here, too: The bullies, jocks and popular kids, the wacky administrator (played oddly over-the-top by Tony Hale), and the no-nonsense drama teacher (Natasha Rothwell, as much of a hilarious standout here as she is on HBO’s “Insecure.”)
Love, Simon belongs on the shelf next to Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, and 10 Things I Hate About You, among many other such teen- and college-aged stories.
She’s the best on-screen teacher since Allison Janney in “10 Things I Hate About You,” both unafraid of giving her students shit and a fierce defender of them, as well.
Nick Robinson (Everything, Everything and Jurassic World) plays Simon with the dreaminess you want in a teen rom-com lead, and his performance recalls Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You, both in the “being involved a classmate’s elaborate romantical plot” way and the way of a young performer who is obviously brimming with talent that is barely being scratched.
The callbacks to various films from that time, particularly Never Been Kissed and 10 Things I Hate About You, can only be deliberate.
And if the title recalls the British romantic-comedy smash “Love, Actually,” it’s for good reason, although “Love, Simon” has more in common with those cherished but overrated films of the late John Hughes (“Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” “The Breakfast Club”) than those of Richard Curtis.
Love, Simon doesn't quite reach the heights of teen movie classics like Say, Anything..., Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Clueless, Mean Girls or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it comes close enough to be one of the best American romantic teen comedies in recent memory.
Love, Simon belongs on the shelf next to Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, and 10 Things I Hate About You, among many other such teen- and college-aged stories.
Even though the new millennium brought a self-aware, hipper variant in movies like Mean Girls (2004) and Easy A (2010), they still have the same-old teen archetypes of earlier John Hughes films.
Love, Simon doesn't quite reach the heights of teen movie classics like Say, Anything..., Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Clueless, Mean Girls or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it comes close enough to be one of the best American romantic teen comedies in recent memory.
Even compared with, say, “ Moonlight ,” or “ Call Me By Your Name ,” this film is chaste; it avoids the oddball raunchiness of mid-aughts efforts like “She’s The Man” and “Mean Girls.”
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And if the title recalls the British romantic-comedy smash “Love, Actually,” it’s for good reason, although “Love, Simon” has more in common with those cherished but overrated films of the late John Hughes (“Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” “The Breakfast Club”) than those of Richard Curtis.
It’s filled with familiar coming-of-age milestones, developments and emotions, and characters that could’ve easily jumped from Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off into the 21st century.
There is a distinct Never Been Kissed vibe toward the end, a nod to 10 Things, and a little bit of a John Hughes-ian dramatic infusion around Simon’s come-out, but it never feels like it’s ripping off any other movie.
The two teens exchange emails, making this feel like the gay teen version of rom-com essential “You’ve Got Mail” in the best of ways.
Novelist Becky Albertalli and 'This Is Us' screenwriters Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker use the anonymous pen pal device from such films as "The Shop Around the Corner" and "You've Got Mail" as their obstacle and up the ante with a blackmail threat with all kinds of romantic fallout, but it is their finely tuned situations and sharp dialogue delivered by a thoroughly charming cast that makes this "Simon" something special.
It’s You’ve Got Mail for the Grindr era, but sweeter, and with better playlists.
Both express their fear and desire of coming out as they navigate their regular lives at high school, falling for each other in the process à la You’ve Got Mail.
Simon starts his day sampling Nora's latest 'Top Chef' inspired breakfast experiment before picking up Leah, Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr., "Brigsby Bear") and their newest pal Abby (Alexandra Shipp, "X-Men: Apocalypse") and their a.m.
He boasts a close-knit group of friends, including his childhood best pal Leah (Katherine Langford, TV’s 13 Reasons Why), the soccer-mad Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Spider-Man Homecoming) and newcomer Abby (Alexandra Shipp, X-Men: Apocalypse).
“Love, Simon” is set during Simon’s senior year, as he and his friends await graduation: his best friend Leah (Katherine Langford), who shares many of his interests, including alternative rock like Radiohead and Elliott Smith; his close friend Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr., of “Spider-Man: Homecoming” ), who plays soccer on their school team; and newcomer Abby (Alexandra Shipp, of “X-Men: Apocalypse” ), who recently moved to the Atlanta suburbs from Washington, D.C., after her parents’ divorce.
…young, mohawk’d Storm from X-Men: Apocalypse .
He's also got a great group of friends and coffee mates in Leah (13 Reasons Why's Katherine Langford), Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr. of The Land), and Abbey (Alexandra Shipp of X-Men: Apocalypse) he has known almost his entire life.
But the actual plot is a contrived distraction: Dorky try-hard Martin (Logan Miller) finds out Simon’s secret and, nursing a crush on Simon’s friend Abby (Alexandra Shipp, young Storm from X-Men: Apocalypse ), blackmails Simon into nudging the two of them together.
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Historically, the LGBT films that have raked in the most money are the ones that boasted attention-grabbing hooks ("gay cowboy movie" Brokeback Mountain) or conformed to certain gay narratives the public was comfortable with (dying of AIDS in Philadelphia; South Beach flamboyance in The Birdcage).
Surely, one movie like Love, Simon begets more movies like Love, Simon—which is why Brokeback Mountain, the last mainstream gay movie of similar studio-backed prominence, was released “only” three presidents ago.
Flash forward to the 2010s and, shockingly enough since broadcast TV already broached the subject years before that, there still hadn't been a major studio release where the central protagonist was gay (movies like 2017's "Call Me By Your Name" and 2005's "Brokeback Mountain," as examples, were released by the art house divisions of Sony and Universal respectively).
The ones where men died from AIDS (“Dallas Buyers Club”), families were ripped apart by dormant desires (“Brokeback Mountain”) or dudes faced an Everest of hate — even in comedies (“Priscilla Queen of the Desert”).
In light of gay-themed dramas such as "Brokeback Mountain" in which homosexuals become objects of fear and derision or targets of unspeakable brutality, "Love, Simon" feels like a romantic fantasy.
Joining the likes of Brokeback Mountain, Blue is the Warmest Colour, and very few others, Love, Simon is an essential step on that journey and among the best representations of a gay love story depicted on screen.
It can be terrifying for young kids to come out, and it can be difficult and even uncomfortable for some of those kids to identify with versions of queerness in movies like But I’m a Cheerleader or John Waters’ camp classics that others may cite as touchstones for realizing and coming to terms with their own sexuality.