Annika Bergstrom, Staff Reporter
Originally Published May 7, 2018
I would probably be one of the only people who didn’t enjoy Love, Simon to the fullest extent. The acting was good, the cinematography was of an average quality, and the plot was mediocre.
I’m a big believer in the quality of a film being based largely around the plot, and Love, Simon didn’t fit this criteria extremely well. This is mainly because the plot was centered on the fact that Simon is gay and nothing else.
The movie is officially classified by a quick Google search as a romance story, and yet the actual romance took up an approximate total of 30 minutes of screentime.
The beginning opens with Simon narrating that he’s “just like you,” which is a nice opener to ease straight people into accepting him if they’re already prejudiced and would be watching the movie despite that. Then the film completely alienates his character by having him say “I just have one huge secret.” This pretty much screams “but I’m GAY and that’s all this is going to be about,” which isn’t exactly what I would want in a movie.
Straight people get their cutesy romantic films which are actually about the romance part of the story while LGBT people get movies solely about the fact that the main character is gay, and there’s never any other representation besides that. Usually, if you go to watch a movie with LGBT representation, it’ll be a skinny white boy playing the main gay character. Love, Simon did a good job in casting a person of color to play the love interest.
One other inaccuracy within the movie is that Simon and his love interest don’t have any other LGBT friends. Even as children, before realising they’re not straight, LGBT people tend to stick with other LGBT people. It is highly unlikely that Simon, his love interest, and Ethan are the only gay people at their school, and it is even more unlikely that none of them were close friends.
Overall, Love, Simon is an averagely made movie with good acting that makes you want to punch some characters in the face, and a plot which is again mostly trying to appeal to straight people.
3 stars
