What's Not to Love About 'Love, Simon?'

There has been an epidemic shortage of rom-coms of late: Chrissy Teigen and I agree. But, friends, there’s a new rom-com in town and it’s a bit less white, a lot less heteronormative and a lot more awesome (lol omg cheesy sry). Love, Simon hits the spot, the nail on the head, two birds with one stone, all the clichés we know and love about Hollywood. It will make you laugh belly laughs and cry crocodile tears, more clichés but done well, touching, familiar, satisfying.

Simon Spier is a regular high school student with a big secret: he’s gay. He enters into an anonymous email exchange with Blue, a fellow student who’s also closeted, and things happen from there. There’s a climax and a resolution. It’s a story. Simon’s friends are great, his parents are great, his sister is great, even his vice-principal and his socially inept foil are great. Also, the acting is skillful, the dialogue is sharp and the soundtrack is bomb. 10/10 would watch with a couple of girlfriends and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s.

I try not to read anything about a film before seeing it, but a few days ago, I read that critics are saying we don’t need this kind of media in 2018 (read: coming out stories, LGBTQ+-led narratives). Let me take a deep meditative breath here before I go on. I just googled “Love, Simon” and one of the top results, before the Wikipedia page, before the iMDb, the Twitter and the Rotten Tomatoes, was this article. It’s about a fun-loving dude, “the head of a Christian anti-gay pressure group known as Americans for Truth about Homosexuality,” who associates homosexuality with propaganda, mental illness, sin and perversion. Yes, in 2018, of course, in 2018. All you need to do is open up Facebook to catch a glimpse of the hatred and exclusion that still runs rampant half a century after Stonewall, not to mention the army of well-meaning white straight liberals (that’s me) who constantly say the wrong thing and cannot, will not get it (go watch Get Out). So, yes, please, keep the representation of marginalised groups coming — and if it’s mainstream and predictable, even better. That means something’s working.

8/10