Movie Reaction: Love, Simon

Formula: You've Got Mail * Easy A

(I'm dropping the ball with this formula and I apologize)

This post is going to be a diary entry as much as it is thoughts about a movie, which I think is pretty fitting since Love, Simon is all heart anyway. I have the softest of soft spots for high school movies. High school is this universal thing that I think we all feel like we did wrong. At least, that's how I feel about it. In a lot of ways, I had a typical high school experience. I hung out with friends. I did a lot of homework. I had a part time job. However, there's a lot of things I didn't do that I've never forgiven myself for. I spent a lot of time trying to hide. I never went to parties. I never drank or broke any of the rules. I never had a first love or even a crush (An all boys school has that problem). I kept myself in a bubble and often opted to stay home when I should've gone out. I didn't get a license until right before I graduated. The first dance I ever went to was senior prom and I didn't even know my date until that night. I didn't start to get the hang of high school until it was over. That's all consistent with the person I am now by the way. I've come to terms with a lot of it, but there's still a part of me that looks at high school as a big "what if". That's what makes a movie like Love, Simon irresistible to me.

The simple, possibly reductive description of Love, Simon is that it's a movie about a kid trying to come out and trying to find his first love. Technically, that's right. but there's so much more to it than that. It's about the fear of changing. It's about the fear of people not liking who you really are or the fear of losing who you were to be who you are. It's about how one experience doesn't have to come at the expense of another. It's as emotionally universal as all the best high school movies are, even if the details don't match up with your own.

I'm riding on an emotional high right now, so I'm not sure I can think very critically about this, nor do I care to. I loved almost the entire cast. As Simon, Nick Robinson does a great job. He's expressive with and without dialogue, which the role requires. His friends, played by Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, and Jorge Lendenborg Jr. feel like any other group of friends, each with their own drama. The high school is populated nicely with believable characters. I got perhaps more of Logan Miller's Martin than I cared for, but that was kind of the point. The teachers are drawn a bit more broadly. Tony Hale as the Vice Principal plays it a bit too broad at times. Natasha Rothwell is a hoot as the head of the Drama department. Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel are imperfect ideal parents the movie needs. I'm not sure anyone beyond Robinson [for obvious reasons] really stood out, because this is a movie about moments more than highlighting characters.

I don't know what it's like to come out, but I've always been intrigued by the idea of it. I've never had something like that to hide or to reveal to people. I'm a fairly closed off person though. I can't imagine how invasive it must feel to have announce something like that. I still shutter at the thought of all the dumb questions I've asked friends who came out; the kind of questions I've never had to answer about myself. Still, there is something I envy about the idea. In Love, Simon, Jennifer Garner has a wonderful speech in which she compares coming out to holding your breath for a long time then finally exhaling. I relate to holding my breath, but I don't have an exhale moment like coming out. I suppose for me it's more like being constantly reminded that I've never had to hold my breath ever in my life. Obviously, I know there's more to it than that. A person is never done coming out. I never have to worry about being rejected by people I care for because of something I can't change. There's a thousand other things that never even occurred to me. I think we all romanticize the experiences of others while ignoring the difficulties.

I think what I love the most about Love, Simon is that it doesn't treat experience as a zero-sum game. Everyone has their own problems. You don't have to take away from one person's problems to fully feel your own. It's the same thing I loved about Lady Bird. All the characters exist beyond Simon. While he's the center of this movie, he's not the center of everyone's lives. That makes the conversations in Simon's "coming out tour" even better. I adored every single one of those talks. The very first person Simon tells is handled so simply and beautifully that I wasn't sure the movie could get outdo it (I was wrong). His mother is so sad there's things he has to experience alone. His dad is so afraid that he made things harder for Simon to open up. None of that takes away from Simon's diffuculties, but it makes the conversations even more impactful. Simon's whole social circle is all so ideal. The movie does a terrific job showing how his decision to wait to come out is more about himself than others.

Certainly, the scene that most wrecked me was Simon's talk with his lifelong friend Leah (Langford) after he is outed. I may not know coming out. I may not know first love. But I do know that conversation. It's weird hearing exact things I've said or thought in a movie. You'd think I run into it all the time because almost all media is targeted at my exact demographic, Sure, I love my father, so the end of About Time makes me weep. Yes, I've had crushes on women who don't feel the same way about me, so I relate to every tragic romance ever. The feeling of having to find out that a close friend is gay from a relative stranger and wondering what I "did wrong" to not be trusted with that information sooner hits as close as anything I've seen in a movie*. And the handling of that conversation in the movie is dead on.

* Of course, there's way more too it than that. I'm mainly referring to the gut reaction feeling. It's surprising how long that's lingered.

Love, Simon is a happy movie mostly, which is so refreshing. I'm a sucker for happy endings and optimistic outlooks. A lot of things in life are scary enough without having to be reminded of everything that could go wrong. I get exhausted by movies that focus on the hardship more than the joy. I certainly recognize more in Love, Simon than I do in a lot of similar movies. It's a terrific example of universality through specificity. It's a great movie about love, friendship, and family. Sorry if this post turned into talking about myself more than the movie. All I'm really trying to say is that it's a good movie.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend