Love, Simon (2018) Review

Time: 110 Minutes
Age Rating: Offensive language & sexual references
Cast:
Nick Robinson as Simon Spier
Josh Duhamel as Jack Spier
Jennifer Garner as Emily Spier
Katherine Langford as Leah Burke
Alexandra Shipp as Abby Suso
Jorge Lendeborg Jr. as Nick Eisner
Keiynan Lonsdale as Abraham “Bram” Greenfeld
Miles Heizer as Cal Price
Logan Miller as Martin Addison
Director: Greg Berlanti

Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier (Nick Robinson), 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. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, terrifying and life-changing.

Love, Simon is a movie I’ve been meaning to get around to seeing. While it is yet another teen romantic comedy, I had been hearing some good things about it, and plus it was pretty significant with it being the first major studio movie to focus on a teen gay romance. Love, Simon definitely lived up to all the hype and is worth watching by everyone.

Love, Simon does follow similar beats to other teen romances movies and doesn’t offer up a ton of twists, surprises or anything like that, but it’s a very well written movie and was pretty good for what it is. It’s emotional, funny, and really all of it works. Yes it can be cheesy but honestly, none of it bothered me that much and usually when things in movies get cheesy or corny it can get on my nerves. Not even the clichés in this movie bothered me. Love, Simon just worked so well as a feel good movie that I was on board with it from start to finish.

I’ve only seen Nick Robinson in Jurassic World and The 5th Wave and his performances in those weren’t all that good but here he really gets to show off his talent here in the lead role of Simon. He’s likable, easy to follow as the protagonist and stole every scene he was in, all in all it was a great performance. Robinson more than showed off his talents here and I hope that he gets more great work and roles like this in the future. His friends played by Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, Jorge Lendeborg Jr. and others were also good and worked together really well. The parents played by Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner also added quite a bit to the movie, even if they weren’t in it a ton. Really everyone’s performances were really good and added to the movie in some way, shape or form.

Love, Simon was directed reasonably well by Greg Berlanti, it’s definitely directed like a typical teen movie, especially with all the music choices, but it was still directed at an adequate level. The editing and all of that really worked for the movie.

Love, Simon for the most part doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but it is successfully entertaining, funny and heartfelt, and achieved what it set out to do. I’ve noticed that there was a little bit of backlash against this movie because although it was a movie focussing on gay characters, it was really a cheesy romantic comedy that in itself wasn’t anything particularly special, or really anything overly complex and didn’t necessarily have nothing new to say. No, it’s not a movie like Moonlight, Carol, or any other academy award worthy movie focussing on gay characters, and it doesn’t reach a level anywhere close to them, but it wasn’t trying to. And at the same time though, it actually still is kind of special. It really should be acknowledged for what it did, it’s the first film by a major Hollywood studio to focus on a gay teenage romance, and that in itself is an achievement. If you despise the whole teen romantic comedy genre, this movie probably won’t change your mind, but I think no matter what you feel about the movie, it is still worth celebrating. Love, Simon is a great coming of age story for today’s generation.

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