If Love, Simon is a true representation of today’s teenagers — and if the crowd at our local theater’s first show of the day is any indication, it is — I finally have hope for the future.
This is the best high school movie I’ve seen maybe ever and I suggest you stop reading and just head to the multiplex right now.
Love, Simon is not only a coming of age story, it’s a coming out story. And, to paraphrase Aibileen Clark from The Help, it is kind, it is smart, it is important.
Simon (Nick Robinson) is, by his own account, an average teenager. He has loving parents (Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel), a caring younger sister and a group of close friends.
He also, though, has a “huge-ass secret.”
Simon is gay and terrified of anyone finding out.
When, one day, he discovers an anonymous post on the school’s message board from another boy who shares that same secret, he reaches out to him under the pseudonym, “Jacques.”
Their correspondence becomes his saving grace and, as he tries to figure out who he’s really writing to, things go terribly wrong.
The journey toward coming out for both of them is painful, funny and deeply moving, and I dare you not to shed a tear or two.
The movie is beautifully written and acted, and Robinson is perfect as the charismatic, vulnerable, awkward, very real Simon. Garner and Duhamel are the parents every gay child should have, reassuring him that of course they still love him, that “You’re still you” and that now “You get to be more you than you’ve been in a very long time.”
I hope this is a game-changer for the teen movie genre — hey, for all movie genres — and that it’s simply the first in a new generation of films naturally depicting kids of different races, religions, genders, who are gay, straight, transgender, non-binary, bisexual, whatever.
It’s fantastic that the filmmakers included a black gay young man and a Jewish gay young man in the story but, ahem, where are the gay women? Please, Hollywood, let’s make sure they’re always represented, too.
Simon says, “I deserve a great love story,” and he’s right. But so does everyone else, too.
I read this book this week and loved it so. I am so excited to see this movie. <3
I saw this movie yesterday. It was great!
I’ll have to put in on my screening list. My first boyfriend in high school turned out to be gay so I can relate.
This looks like a touching movie. I had a friend ask me out one time. I said no because I didn’t feel the same. Now, he is getting married next year to a long-time boyfriend. That was in the 80’s.