Review of Love, Simon (2018) by Christian24601 — 20 Mar 2019

Love, Simon is a stunning teen-romance movie, but with a difference.

Starring Nick Robinson as Simon Spier, a high school teenager with a happy home life, a family who care about him and good friends, but he also has a secret and is understandably concerned that if he tells this secret to his family his life will never be the same, and that secret is that he’s gay.

He’s never ‘come out’, never told anyone about it, but he’s known for a while, and when he develops an online relationship with another student from the same high school, who is also gay but hasn’t come out yet, he gets the courage to finally do things he was always afraid to do. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know the identity of the student he has fallen for, apart from his nickname in the emails and chats, ‘Blue’, and the journey Simon takes to resolve all these issues and find out who it is, proves to be funny, life-changing and incredibly touching.

I didn’t know anything about this movie, not even what it was about. I was recommended it by a family member and went into it completely blind. I didn’t watch any trailers or read anything about it, and one of my main praises for the film is the fact that this is a mainstream teen romance movie told from the perspective of a gay man, and this is incredibly rare. But don’t think that is the only reason this film is good, yes a major studio has made a film of this subject, but there are so many other reasons this film is such a beautiful and genuinely incredible movie. It’s extremely well written, very well acted and brilliantly directed.

Nick Robinson gives a stunning performance, painfully real and doesn’t come across as over the top or in any way stereotypical. This is also a major plus of the film, and all credit to the writing and direction that it doesn’t set out to make us feel sorry for the character, it’s just asking us to relate to him.

We’ve all had struggles in life, either at school, work or even dating, we’ve all had to work through things possibly being worried or frightened to tell anyone about it and this is what makes us relate to Simon in this film, we see his struggles and know that even if it isn’t the same situation, we understand the feelings and emotions behind them.

I loved this film for so many reasons. It takes its time, this may be a downside for some who like their teen romance movies to move along, to do the big reveal early then have the rest of the film just move along developing the relationship between the two main characters, Love, Simon doesn’t do this, and for me that was refreshing.

In today’s world, I am sure that everyone has experience in online dating, and this is the heart of this film. Simon has started this online relationship but doesn’t know who the other guy is, he knows its someone from his school and he’s trying to figure out which one it is. There are some great scenes where he is subtly investigating and these scenes provide a mystery to the movie which is so good.

I found nearly every character in this film had realism, you could understand and appreciate everything about them. Apart from, and this is one of my ‘niggles’ about the film, the main antagonist Martin, a kid at the school who does some seriously awful things. I was disappointed by how the movie just seemed to gloss over them and the impact these things have on people. His actions are damaging and traumatise our lead character and his friends, through sly snooping he discovers Simon’s secret and blackmails him and the film seems to just brush it aside, which for me felt wrong and a bit lazy. Martin does get a stern talking to at the end, but I think the film should have paid more attention as to how dangerous his actions were, especially considering how relatable the movie is to real life.

My other niggle is very petty but it is just one line in the film that I thought…’Ummm actually, no I don’t think so’. In the opening montage, Simon says ‘My life is just like yours, except for this one big secret’, and then we see his stunning home, beautiful well-to-do family dynamic and I thought, hold on I’m not sure your life is just like the majority of the viewers. I know it’s a daft ‘niggle’, but this just goes to show how good the film actually is, to find fault in it was so tough all I could comment on is this line at the beginning of the film, and the way the writers dealt with the actions of the main antagonist, other than that, I genuinely couldn’t find fault.

It’s a charming, funny and touching movie with amazing performances and I would recommend it to everyone.