You Had Me At Skip It - Movie Podcast

WHy I love "Love, Simon"

By Michael Sheppard

To me, Love, Simon is simply one of the best movies I saw in 2018. I feel like this movie is the best coming-of-age story I've ever seen on film. This film is about a young man in high school, who is gay and is having a hard time coming out to his parents, friends and everyone in his life. That is the movie in a very narrow nutshell. But for my next statement you needed to know this premise.

I have never experienced this. I will never experience this. I understand that.

Love, Simon, for me, does so many things well that a film should do, that it is easy to feel empathy and to put yourself into Simon's situation, even though I will never fully understand it. But before we talk more about that, let’s get into the film.

Simon Spier is a teenager who has been keeping the secret that he’s gay from his friends and family. Simon has three very close friends, Leah, Nick and Abby. He has a mother, a father, a sister, and from what you see a pretty solid family life, and very well rounded friends. Through a series of very unfortunate events, a fellow classmate, Martin, learns Simon’s secret through reading Simon’s emails. Simon has made a connection with someone else at his high school who is also gay, but he has no idea who this person is. Simon knows this person as "Blue". Now that Martin knows Simon’s secret, he uses this to blackmail Simon into helping him with his crush on Abby. So now, Simon is stuck trying to help Martin with his crush, using his position as Abby’s friend to try to connect them, while also dodging feelings from Leah, and trying to keep Nick away from Abby so Martin has a shot. A complex and wonderful way for a film to begin. Love, Simon is not only a coming out story for Simon, but it is also about friendship. Simon feels such concern over people finding out his secret, that he goes to incredible lengths to connect Abby and Martin. I’m starting to head into spoiler talk here, so I’ll just say he does take advantage of his friends, while trying to appease Martin. GO WATCH THE MOVIE FOR MORE.

Now, I may not be able to understand the side of Simon that's hiding part of who he is from his friends, but what I can understand is the idea of liking somebody in high school and not wanting it to become public knowledge. So yes, I can’t imagine hiding this type of secret from my friends, but I can imagine hiding secrets in general that weigh on you. I mean, that was me in Grade 10, 11, 12, 12 again, university, a year ago, etc. That feeling of not wanting your parents or your friends or anyone to find out who you like is something I do get. Especially in high school, when things feel like the end of the world to be embarrassed like that. Because in high school, that often is the end of your world. That feeling gives me at least an idea of why Simon is trying so hard, even at the sacrifice of his friends, to keep his secret safe. I don't think Simon always does the right thing along the journey of this film, but I also could see myself as a teenager making a lot of similar decisions, even if it was at the sacrifice of my friends, because I felt I needed to hide something, avoid embarrassment, or because I felt shame. I would want to avoid what could be my own perception of consequences if people ever found out my secret. Simon very skilfully manipulates his friends and classmates trying to help Martin to the point where he even starts to feel some sympathy towards Martin. You see Simon's good heart. And even though he is flawed, I see at the core Simon is good, and that helps me relate to him as our lead character. Even though he makes mistakes, he’s a good person, and that’s what makes interesting protagonists for me. A flawed, good character, just trying to do what they feel is right, making MANY mistakes along the way.

This movie also has a lot of technical elements that I really admire in filmmaking, both in general, but also for coming of age stories. The acting across the board is solid. There isn’t a weak link in this cast, and all of the young stars in the film are for sure going to have careers in the future. Already a few years later, we see the two female leads have been in major films such as X-Men and Knives Out. Good starts for Alexandra Shipp (Abby) and Katherine Langford (Leah).

The biggest strength in this film is the writing. In coming of age stories you often see some symmetry between the beginning and the end of the film with a key difference being the characters that changed or grew along the way. The film usually ends with some key differences, such as leaving high school. Even after the drama of the film is over, coming of age stories often show young people that life does continue, it moves forward, and you have to accept that, even though it’s hard to. What's interesting about Love, Simon is the first moments of this film are almost shot for shot the same as the final moments. You see Simon go through his morning routine, joking with his parents, supporting his sister’s cooking, picking up his friends for a ride to school, ordering them drinks, and so on. So, to spoil the end of the movie, after everything is said and done and everyone in Simon’s life knows he is gay, the film ends exactly as it began. Life for Simon is the same as it was before, with the biggest change being he picks up his now boyfriend on his way to school as well as his friends, and most importantly, Simon seems a bit more comfortable, with a bit more of a jump in his step. This is powerful to anyone who ever may have a friend or a loved one come out to them. Simon can now be a little bit more comfortable, a little bit happier, because he's accepted who he is. Other people around him have accepted who he is. Simon has a weight lifted off his shoulders, but the way he interacts with his parents, his sister, and his friends hasn’t changed much. Maybe they all know him a little better. But the jokes are there. The smiles are there. Accepting Simon for who he is hasn’t changed how they all communicate with him, hasn’t changed their relationship for the worse. If it’s changed or grown, it’s all for the better because now you’re dealing with someone who accepts and embraces who they are. And you, in turn, do the same. But nothing else has changed.

Now that's what the ending of this film means to me. I can only know what it means to me. For someone else out there it might mean something different. I know people are not this accepting, so this film might be a very poor retelling of someone's coming out story. And I realized that. It is, after all, just a movie. But movies can show us how the world should be….much like Star Trek does. Okay, rough segway, BUT anybody who listens to Screening in Kingston knows i’m a huge Star Trek fan, so of course I'm going to take an opportunity to bring up something related to Star Trek. Love, Simon does something that Star Trek does exceptionally well. They create a situation that parallels a real life situation and shows you the absurdity of it, which makes you think back on the situation it’s referring to. I’ll give you an example. There's a great scene in Love, Simon, where Simon asks why is it that only someone who is gay has to come out. So what they do in the film is they have all the main characters “come out” to their parents as straight. All the reactions are relatively filled with concern, or negativity, much in the same way you imagine coming out to your parents would be like. I laughed. Everyone in the theatre laughed. Because it’s silly. And it actually is. It’s silly to react so poorly in the way these parents do. This scene does the job. Because if it’s silly in this manner, why is it so horrible if you swap the gender of who your child is saying they like? I asked myself that, and suddenly, I saw myself as a parent, not reacting the way these parents do, to my child saying really anything along the lines of who they like, or don’t like. This is the type of lens Star Trek was shining on race/culture for me since I was 8. But that’s a topic for another time.

This film tries to show you if you're the parent, or the friend, that if someone comes out to you, it doesn't necessarily have to change your relationship with them. It actually could make it better! You can still go grab a drink with your friend before class, you can still talk about all the many relationship issues that come with being a teen, you can still talk about college and plan for the future. You may even find that nothing seems to change for you, from the friend or the family perspective, when it comes to how you relate back to the person who is opening up to you. For me, embarrassing who you are is not a bad thing, this film echoes that.

I still understand that from my position of privilege there are many things I will never experience, and never fully understand. But luckily for me films like Love, Simon at least evoke feelings within me that help me try to understand what it could be like to be in Simon's situation. It also is a very good lesson for any individual who may one day find themselves in Simon’s friends’ position, or that of his parents and his sister. One day you may be like one of the characters of the film, listening to someone you care about telling you they have been hiding a part of what makes them the person you love. Maybe this film gets me 5% or 10% closer to understanding, and to me, that's something. I will take 5% or 10% more education any day, on any topic. I don’t have children, and maybe I never will have children. But if I one day do, Love, Simon is without a doubt one of 4 or 5 coming of age movies I would show them well before they get to high school. To me, it's an important movie because it's a story of friendship, family, high school life and what it means to accept people for who they are. Put simply, I love Love, Simon.

*Love, Simon is now available on CRAVE