Thursday, March 29, 2018

Film Review - Love, Simon (2018)

Love, Simon is based off of the novel and stars Nick Robinson as Simon who is a high school student with his friends played by Alexandra Shipp (Storm in X-Men Apocalypse), Katherine Langford and Jorge Lendeborg Jr and he has a normal family with parents played by Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel but he begins to realise that he is gay and when one of his other students finds out he has to do his bidding virtually or risk his secret coming out before he is ready to reveal it himself.

Love, Simon very nicely blends the teen film formula with the coming out story very well and while watching it at times I was reminded of the wave of euphoria that came over Australia last year when Same Sex Marriage was finally legalized in that the film has a very positive attitude about someone coming out and the character of Simon lives in a very progressive environment though there is some hardship to be found in the story.

The film also has a great young cast of actors anchoring it, Robinson, Shipp, Langford and Lendeborg Jr all play off each other very very well and I did like seeing Ms Shipp again after watching her in Apocalypse in 2016 and I quite liked Mr Robinson as Simon even though it is weird to hear others say your name.

But getting back to Robinson he carries both the high and lows of his character very well and you become invested in him and you want to see him do well and find his place and set things right when they go wrong and sure this movie could’ve have delved more into the struggles of coming out as a gay man to those around you but it would not have fit with the balance of the tones between that story and the teen film formula.

And so that was Love, Simon a film that is quite good and I hope people will go and check out, 3 out of 5.

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