Movie Review: 'Love Simon'

Love Simon is remarkable for being not all that accomplished or remarkable. Don’t get me wrong, the film is lovely. It’s just lovely in the same way a middle of the road sitcom has graceful moments fitting of the medium. What’s remarkable is that we’ve finally reached an era where we can present young gay characters in movies without it having to carry the weight of a movement. Gay people deserve to be represented in as much middle of the road, sitcom entertainment as anyone else, and Love, Simon hits those notes perfectly.

Simon (Nick Robinson) has a secret that he is keeping from his loving family and close knit group of friends: he’s gay. Despite his incredible advantages, Simon is frightened to be who he is because he doesn’t want anything to change. Coming out would certainly cause an upheaval, even if he can expect nearly universal love and support. It’s the kind of lovable fantasy that makes for solid sitcom conflict.

Simon’s secret is nearly upended when he finds out there is another closeted gay teen at his high school. Simon decides to reach out via email with this kid, who posted his sort of coming out under the pseudonym "Blue," and the two begin a charming email-based romance. Unfortunately, one of Simon’s enemies uncovers the email romance and uses it to blackmail him into helping him get with one of Simon’s friends, Abby (Alexandra Shipp).

If this plot sounds like something that would be at home on a series on the former ABC Family channel, you’re not far off. Director Greg Berlanti has a history crafting similarly middle of the road fare for the CW Network, most recently in the TV Superhero genre. His base instincts are to make things as easy as possible, introduce an agitating character—here an obnoxious nerd named Martin, played by Logan Miller, and force the main character to make bad choices that lead to modest complications.

That Berlanti is here toying with something as important as a teenager’s decision to come out of the closet does give Love, Simon some unearned dramatic weight. That, however, doesn’t change the nature of the film, which is slight with characters enacting sitcom clichés intended as drama and comic punchlines that would be equally at home in any progressive-minded sitcom.

The most obvious of the sitcom elements of Love, Simon is actor Tony Hale, who plays the Vice Principal of Simon’s school. Hale is a talented actor who has earned terrific reviews for his very funny work on Arrested Development and Veep, but here, he’s a punchline in search of a joke that never arrives. Hale is obnoxious and over the top, straining for every oblivious joke that would be accompanied by canned laughter on TV to remind you it’s supposed to be funny.

Simon’s parents, played by Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel, are only slightly better than Hale. Garner, already an actress of limited range, plays the kind of progressive Hollywood dream parent that only exists in the fantasies of the writer's room. Duhamel, meanwhile, tries to play the kind of soft-hearted masculine character that is yet another kind of sitcom fantasy.

I’m not saying that loving, supportive parents of gay teenagers don’t exist, I’m saying that they are more complicated and nuanced than what we are getting here, which is a sitcom shorthand necessitated by a lack of ambition. Love, Simon doesn’t set out to be anything more than a trifle with the adopted importance of its subject, and there is room for that in our entertainment landscape.

As I was alluding to in the opening paragraph, not every movie about young gay people has to be Call Me By Your Name, though that would be a fine aspiration. It’s nice to see that we’ve arrived in an era where a movie like Love, Simon is allowed to be as simpleminded and slight as the kinds of romantic comedies made for straight audiences for so many years.

Love, Simon isn’t complicated, but it’s mindful enough of its serious subject not to be offensive. The film’s heart is in the right place. This just isn’t all that ambitious, and if you don’t believe me, check the film’s ending, which is a pure sitcomic cop-out; entertaining and sweet but not living in any form of reality. For what it is—slight and forgettable—if not for its place in the cultural zeitgeist, Love, Simon is a nice, sweet little movie.

If you’d like a more nuanced and thoughtful yet wildly more entertaining romantic comedy about a character who happens to be gay, check out the direct to On-Demand comedy Becks starring Lena Hall. That film is both honest and funny and exists far more as a romantic comedy than as something carrying the weight of cultural importance. That movie is a true step forward in inclusive cinema than Love, Simon, though again, there’s room for both.

Think of it like this so it seems less insulting: there is room in the movie universe for movies like Once and movies like You’ve Got Mail. Becks is the lovely, understated yet warm and funny romance, and Love, Simon is the Hanks and Ryan mainstream silly movie. And I am saying that it’s great that we live in a time when gay audiences get this kind of mainstream fluff, as they’ve had so little mainstream representation. That doesn’t make Love, Simon a great movie, but it’s not required to be great like You’ve Got Mail was not required to be great. Just enough. Both movies are just enough.