Love, Simon (Greg Berlanti, March 16,2018) Movie • Page 2

This was so so sweet!

 

I liked this quite a bit! Really happy that it exists and that it gives queer kids their own John Hughes moment.

 

This was so lovely. I've seen a lot of people say stuff along the lines of saying they're glad it exists, but it's more blandly competent than truly great filmmaking, and while it's not at the level of something like Lady Bird, I think people miss out a lot on what was actually going on with the filmmaking here, similar to how people criticized Lady Bird for not being a flashy Inarritu movie or something. There were some really great visual touches, like Bram having a blue eraser on his pencil when Simon was watching him during their test. There was real attention to visual cinematic detail. Yeah, this movie isn't an A24 movie or a weighty, gay drama. It's a mainstream teen romantic comedy. A really good one. I think some people are underselling it.

 

Aside from some of the plot tropes that have come with a lot of movies that are stylistically similar to this, like Easy A, The Fault in Our Stars, etc, I didn't have many problems with it, tbh.

 

I've seen people criticize the ending being too cheesy, but like what did you think it would be? It's supposed to be cheesy, and there's some nice symbolizing with how the ferris wheel scene ends with them at the top of the ferris wheel. A nice throwback Blue saying in the beginning that it feels like he is trapped on one going up and down. Idk I'm never one to usually criticize movies in any depth to begin with, but there's nothing I didn't really like about it.

 

Only thing that really bothered me about the movie was Tony Hale. Did not enjoy him in this at all.

 

The only thing I really hated about the movie, and this is a big plot point, so don't read this if you haven't seen it yet:

So when Martin gets embarrassed in front of everyone at school and then decides to out Simon as retribution, I HATED that Abby and Nick pick then to get in Simon's face, saying, "How come you didn't tell me that we liked each other, and how come you were pushing Martin on me?" And after Simon explains, Martin was blackmailing me and threatening to out me, and they STILL do that stupid thing where they imply they're not going to be friends with him anymore and get mad at Simon.

Uhhhh....no....Simon just had literally one of the worst things that could happen to him happen to him, as well as through the worst way possible. The appropriate response would've been, "Oh my God, Martin was blackmailing you? What a wad. He's who we're mad at." Not even that, the even better response would've been "Oh my God, dude, don't even worry about it. That sucks so much that you were outed. This stupid, bland on-and-off interest we have in each other should take a backseat to what you're going through right now."

Their anger towards Simon is 1000% not justified, especially given the fact that, A: He was just outed to the entire school, and B: He was being BLACKMAILED by a PSYCHOPATH. That whole thing really pissed me off, especially when you know they're just going to be friends in the end.

The same goes for Leah, who I thought was super selfish about her feelings for Simon getting in the way of helping him feel better. I get these kids are in high school, but, c'mon.

This whole thing bumped my score down from a 4 to a 3.5 (out of 5), but yeah, it's still a solid movie.

 

I see both sides of that.

My initial reaction was more aligned with yours, but honestly what Simon did was messed up. It may have been justified to an extent, but he really did play with his friends lives. These were supposed to be the people closest to him, and even if you're going to argue that he wasn't ready to come out to them and shouldn't be forced to because of Martin, then at least he came out to Abby, he should have been honest with her about what was going on instead of continuing to try to deceive her. Granted, it was pretty quick after that Martin pulled his big stunt, so maybe there was just not time.

With Leah, it's like she said. He didn't just deceive her - he was actively cruel to her. He thought she was in love with Nick, and he knew Nick actually liked Abby not Leah, but he tried to push them together which would have only ended up hurting Leah had she have really been in love with Nick.

I think it was also supposed to prove a point that Simon being gay was not even a factor to them, they just cared about the way he treated them. There's definitely a question of how much are you allowed to manipulate the people you love to protect yourself/your own secrets? But their reactions do seem a little extreme and they could've handled the situation with a lot more sympathy.

Honestly I think it would've been fine if they had all come to Simon's defense as soon as the bullies made fun of him and Ethan in the cafeteria. Like that should've been when they were like "shit ok I get why you did what you did and obviously what you're going through is a bigger deal than this".

 

About the friends: I think their initial reaction makes sense, but I think they should've made up with Simon immediately after the cafeteria scene, like in Perks of Being a Wallflower. You could see on their faces when they realized how big of a deal it was, but the play must be days later when they actually make up. I'll just have to forgive them for being slow.

 

yeah what Simon did manipulating his friends was shitty even though I understand why he did it, but like who doesn't do shitty things when you're 17

and with the whole Martin thing he was on the spectrum right? not like that makes what he did okay, that was unbelievably shitty and cruel, but I was confused with the social awkwardness if they were trying to make him relatable or what

 

I’m really surprised more people in here aren’t more sympathetic to the situation Simon was put in to why he did that though tbh.

 

I think we all are. That's why the movie still works. You still root for Simon. But we're just looking at both sides here.

 

Yea I understand exactly why Simon did the things he did. I would've done the same thing too, honestly, but luckily I never had to deal with anything even close to that. But they're teenagers and teenagers are selfish. I think part of the more subtle point is that they didn't even understand why he felt he had to work so hard to hide it to begin with because, to them, it was really no big deal. But that's why it would've worked so much better if they rushed to his side in the cafeteria scene. That's where it loses me a little, like at that point Simon should be the one who's mad. Especially Leah and Nick, like you've been friends for how long and you turn your back that quick? But the movie moves so fast at that point that it didn't really bother me overall.

 

a lot of classic teen comedies involve manipulating people to some extent (Cher setting up Mr Hall and Mrs Geist in Clueless, the entire plots of 10 Things I Hate About You and She's All That, Janice using Cady to get revenge on Regina and Regina manipulating people in Mean Girls)
I think part of the fun with this was that Simon was kinda normal and basic and people fuck up sometimes, it's not a very good movie if everyone is just cool all the time

 

^^^I feel like that's what I wanted to say but didn't know how, that's my answer!

 

I guess I just hate that whole "we're mad at you for a few days because it's the third act" thing because I've seen it in so many romantic comedies, and this one did a lot of really cool, forward-thinking things that it bums me out it still resorts to it, when I guess I didn't feel it was earned in this because Simon had a good reason for doing what he did.

 

I don't think it's really a trope though, that's how teenagers are in real life. They're shitty and petty and cruel. On both sides. I appreciate the movie letting these kids act like actual kids. A lot of times in LGBT cinema, young people are so miswritten. It was nice to just have a regular teen fiction plot involving gay people wash over me.

 

Don't get me wrong, I did like this movie quite a bit and it does a ton of stuff really well with big emotional payoffs - that one thing just kind of bugged me afterwards and wanted to get other perspectives.

 

Loved this

 

I really loved this movie. The scene where Jennifer Garner telling Simon he can finally exhale was really good, I loved that scene and have been thinking about it a lot lately.

 

Definitely plan on seeing this at least once more. Thank you, MoviePass!

 

So hell yeah Waterloo Sunset

 

Had a good time with this despite some minor complaints — very sweet and cute. Glad the kids get to have this.

 

Enjoyed this a lot