Some of Love, Simon‘s plot developments are startlingly dark-chief among them a blackmailing scheme that proves disastrous-and it would be nice to see the film interrogate or contextualize that a bit more.
Story-wise, the movie moves along well, telling a surprisingly intricate tale of crushes and secret identities. Cherished as the sparse apartments and simple photography of so many beloved Strand and TLA releases are, gay stuff looks good on a bigger budget.
(I only wish a fantasy sequence in which Simon imagines what life as an out gay guy in college will be like didn’t end with Simon saying in voice-over, “Well, maybe not that gay.” Why not that gay? Why not more gay?) It’s thrilling and almost surreal to be given two hours of this-without anything shaded, coded, or tragic-in studio packaging, cynically capitalist as it may be. Simon is maybe-with all of Robinson’s boyish, straight-acting physicality and timbre-one of those “just happens to be gay” types, but he is nonetheless gay, something the film reminds us of, textually or subtextually, in just about every scene. The story of a 16-year-old, Simon ( Nick Robinson), who isn’t quite ready to come out until he begins an anonymous e-mail romance with another closeted boy at his school, Love, Simon is exciting in how directly and wholly it focuses on its gayness. We will see Love, Simon and feel counted, finally.Īnd, in some ways, yeah, I did. The thinking-and part of the marketing strategy-is that Love, Simon will offer an opportunity to have a certain burden lifted, that it will do the honorable representational work of letting us see our past and present and future selves on the big screen in warm and celebratory ways. (And actually, maybe that it’s a spring comedy makes it a bigger deal.) Love, Simon arrives poised to accommodate a lot of baggage, with each gay person who sees it hanging a little of their own on the movie (or, I suppose, just choosing not to engage with it at all). Which is a rather big deal, even if the movie is just a spring comedy. Love, Simon is the first major studio film about a gay kid coming out. And yet, for me, it was also a fraught experience, both pained and giddy, cheering and dismaying. Though it tells an emotional story about identity and coming out, it’s an easygoing movie, glossy and kind and cozily corny.
the Homo Sapiens Agenda-has a pleasant bearing.
Bright and attractive in both cast and production design, Greg Berlanti’s film-adapted from the best-selling young-adult novel Simon vs. More recently, a director like Céline Sciamma constructed a bracing picture of an intimate female relationship with “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” though looking back at her career, she’s long explored the nuances of female sexuality.įrom the 20th Century up until just this past year with Sweden’s Best International Feature Oscar submission “And Then We Danced,” below is a sampling of some of the best international LGBTQ cinema out there - including alternative entries from popular filmmakers you may have missed.It’s going to be hard to talk about Love, Simon, the new gay teen romantic comedy from Fox (yep!), without it turning into a therapy session.
It has been updated on March 15, 2022.Īmerican movies and TV are making major strides in LGBTQ representation, but storytellers abroad are in many ways ahead of the curve, exploring sexuality and relationships with groundbreaking technique, and in ways often coded and ahead of their time.įrom Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Pier Paolo Pasolini, the fluidity of human sexuality has long fascinated international filmmakers unafraid to bust taboos. Editor’s Note: This list was originally posted on February 27, 2021.