Love, Simon Review

Love, Simon (2018) Directed by Greg Berlanti

Love, Simon is a coming out, coming-of-age story that tells the story of a teenage boy named Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) who is hiding his sexuality to everybody around him. He finds an outlet on his school's message board when another male student expresses his own homosexuality in anonymity. This leads to Simon coming to terms with who he is, even though he's in fear of his world changing once everyone finds out. Simon also starts to get infatuated with the unknown person from the message boards and daydreams about who they are. To complicate things, however, Martin, an obnoxious theater nerd finds out his secret and starts to blackmail Simon into helping him get a date with one of his friends.

This may all sound pretty soap opera-ish, and it's not that far off from what Berlanti has directed before this, but the execution is everything. It ends up being a relatable story for everyone that was awkward or questioned who they were in high school. It has dashes of humor spread throughout in equal measure of heartfelt moments. The only aspect that felt unreal was the painful backlash that Simon gets from his friends once they find out his sexuality and his actions that were in favor of Martin. That was the main part where the dialogue felt too much like a television teen drama. If they were real kids, I feel that they wouldn't be so critical as to why Simon did what he did. Simon's been friends with most of them for years, so they'd probably give him the benefit of a doubt. But they don't because DRAMA!!! Oh, and there was an actual warning before the movie (missed it in theaters, watched it on Amazon) telling the audience that there would be product placement throughout. It was not noticeable, at least not nearly as bad product placement like Man of Steel or Ghostbusters 2016. The kid likes Oreos, so what?

Overall, Love, Simon feels like a breath of fresh air. It's not over the top and full of bloat. It's not pandering to a teenage crowd. Do not expect CW, Nickelodeon or Disney Channel schmatlz. It's a good story with a sense of purpose. It mostly was missed in theaters, but this is your chance to see one of the most gratifying movies this year.