Jacques a dit
Feb. 28th, 2018 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gangrel_priFor those of you who didn't hear, I somehow got tickets for a Sneak Preview of Love, Simon last night at the Lennox here in town. Oddly, I've been unable to stop pondering it today. So, let's talk about it.
We start by meeting Simon (Nick Robinson), a 17 year old senior at Whisper Creek High School in what appears to be suburban Atlanta. Simon tells us about how he's a normal kid with normal friends and a normal family but he has one big secret.
His secret, of course, being that he's gay, something he confesses online to another anonymous student after a post on "Creek Secrets", which here is portrayed as some kind of school gossip page on the web. The boy, who's pseudonym is Blue, confesses he's gay and talks a bit about how he feels. Simon creates a Gmail account and e-mails Blue, and thus starts their very strange online friendship.
Simon starts school days by picking up his friends Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) and Leah (Katherine Langford) (whom he's known since they were kids) and Abby (Alexandra Shipp) (who moved to town towards the beginning of the school year). They get iced coffee before school and go endure High School and musical practice. (In a bit of unreality, the school is putting on Cabaret, something I doubt may high schools would tackle.)
Anyway, Blue does eventually respond to Simon's first e-mail (which Simon signed as Jacques), and in probably one of the most honest things in the movie, leads to Simon near constantly checking his phone to see if Blue has responded any time they write. Of course, after getting caught texting by Vice Principal Worth (Tony Hale), he gets his phone confiscated until after rehearsal, leading to checking his e-mail in the library. He forgets to close his browser, leading to Martin (Logan Miller) seeing and taking pictures of the e-mailed conversations between Blue and Simon.
Martin uses this as blackmail material to get Simon to set him up with Abby. Which he does do, first at Bram's (one of the soccer players who sits at his lunch table) Halloween party, and later running lines at Waffle House. We'll come back to that dinner here in a second. At the party, Simon gets drunk and begins to think Bram might be Blue. This lasts until he walks in on Bram making out with a girl.
Leah walks Simon home and spends the night, hinting around about her deeper feeling for someone in their group, which Simon assumes is Nick.
At Waffle House, Martin gets Abby to talk about her parents' divorce. This convinces him to ask her out at Homecoming, which doesn't go well, and indeed, makes him a meme on Creeksecrets. At Waffle House, Simon meets Lyle, who becomes another candidate for Blue, until he asks about Abby's availability at the game.
Christmas/Hannukah comes, and Blue is going to the middle of nowhere with his dad, whom he finally came out to. At this point, Simon thinks Blue is Aaron (Tyler Chase), who said something in rehearsal about going to the middle of nowhere. However, while on break, Martin, tired of suffering from the memes about his over the top proposal, releases the emails. And thus Simon is outed over Christmas break.
And because he needs to suffer even more, his friends compare notes and figure out Abby and Nick have been quietly admiring each other for some time and are mad that Simon was trying to keep them apart. Abby's mad, because Simon didn't realize she was talking about him during her late night confession. She's also perturbed that Simon told Abby before the outing.
Oh yeah, and Blue blocks Simon, since he values his privacy.
Then comes the harrassment at school, despite the adults being strangely supportive.
Anyway, since this is a rom-com, everything works out, and we finally meet Blue at the end, as he and Simon end up in a grand gesture meeting. (Think Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. Same idea, different execution.)
So, I compared this last night to a John Hughes movie out of the 80's, which is mainly due to a few fantasy sequences and the fact that just about ever adult acts like a idiot for the most part. Upon further reflection, given Simon is narrating this, it's likely that he, like a 17 year old, is reflecting the adults as he sees them. Well, that, and the last scene is essentially Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
There are more than a few points where the fantasy rubs thin and we see the reality quite well, like the scene where Simon's mother (Jennifer Garner) and Simon discuss his coming out, and she echoes a conversation I had (admittedly later in life) with my own mother, about how she knew he was hiding something, but had no idea how to broach the subject. Or when the only openly gay kid at the school (who's name I can't remember and can't find on IMDb), who talks about his home life, where his mother hides his sexuality from his grandparents.
What I anticipate hearing in terms of negativity about the movie after release is likely diversity issues. While the cast is a real ethnic mix, Simon is white and from an affluent family. (Hell, her gets his sister a Cuisinart for Christmas.) The black theater teacher might as well be called Sassy Black Woman, even though she's likely the best adult in the movie. And honestly, in a different setting (read: rural area, with poor parents), this movie would have played out a lot differently. However, Simon's tale is honest and contains enough seeds of many folk's coming out stories, even these little detractions shouldn't interfere with people identifying with Simon or his story.
We start by meeting Simon (Nick Robinson), a 17 year old senior at Whisper Creek High School in what appears to be suburban Atlanta. Simon tells us about how he's a normal kid with normal friends and a normal family but he has one big secret.
His secret, of course, being that he's gay, something he confesses online to another anonymous student after a post on "Creek Secrets", which here is portrayed as some kind of school gossip page on the web. The boy, who's pseudonym is Blue, confesses he's gay and talks a bit about how he feels. Simon creates a Gmail account and e-mails Blue, and thus starts their very strange online friendship.
Simon starts school days by picking up his friends Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) and Leah (Katherine Langford) (whom he's known since they were kids) and Abby (Alexandra Shipp) (who moved to town towards the beginning of the school year). They get iced coffee before school and go endure High School and musical practice. (In a bit of unreality, the school is putting on Cabaret, something I doubt may high schools would tackle.)
Anyway, Blue does eventually respond to Simon's first e-mail (which Simon signed as Jacques), and in probably one of the most honest things in the movie, leads to Simon near constantly checking his phone to see if Blue has responded any time they write. Of course, after getting caught texting by Vice Principal Worth (Tony Hale), he gets his phone confiscated until after rehearsal, leading to checking his e-mail in the library. He forgets to close his browser, leading to Martin (Logan Miller) seeing and taking pictures of the e-mailed conversations between Blue and Simon.
Martin uses this as blackmail material to get Simon to set him up with Abby. Which he does do, first at Bram's (one of the soccer players who sits at his lunch table) Halloween party, and later running lines at Waffle House. We'll come back to that dinner here in a second. At the party, Simon gets drunk and begins to think Bram might be Blue. This lasts until he walks in on Bram making out with a girl.
Leah walks Simon home and spends the night, hinting around about her deeper feeling for someone in their group, which Simon assumes is Nick.
At Waffle House, Martin gets Abby to talk about her parents' divorce. This convinces him to ask her out at Homecoming, which doesn't go well, and indeed, makes him a meme on Creeksecrets. At Waffle House, Simon meets Lyle, who becomes another candidate for Blue, until he asks about Abby's availability at the game.
Christmas/Hannukah comes, and Blue is going to the middle of nowhere with his dad, whom he finally came out to. At this point, Simon thinks Blue is Aaron (Tyler Chase), who said something in rehearsal about going to the middle of nowhere. However, while on break, Martin, tired of suffering from the memes about his over the top proposal, releases the emails. And thus Simon is outed over Christmas break.
And because he needs to suffer even more, his friends compare notes and figure out Abby and Nick have been quietly admiring each other for some time and are mad that Simon was trying to keep them apart. Abby's mad, because Simon didn't realize she was talking about him during her late night confession. She's also perturbed that Simon told Abby before the outing.
Oh yeah, and Blue blocks Simon, since he values his privacy.
Then comes the harrassment at school, despite the adults being strangely supportive.
Anyway, since this is a rom-com, everything works out, and we finally meet Blue at the end, as he and Simon end up in a grand gesture meeting. (Think Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. Same idea, different execution.)
So, I compared this last night to a John Hughes movie out of the 80's, which is mainly due to a few fantasy sequences and the fact that just about ever adult acts like a idiot for the most part. Upon further reflection, given Simon is narrating this, it's likely that he, like a 17 year old, is reflecting the adults as he sees them. Well, that, and the last scene is essentially Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
There are more than a few points where the fantasy rubs thin and we see the reality quite well, like the scene where Simon's mother (Jennifer Garner) and Simon discuss his coming out, and she echoes a conversation I had (admittedly later in life) with my own mother, about how she knew he was hiding something, but had no idea how to broach the subject. Or when the only openly gay kid at the school (who's name I can't remember and can't find on IMDb), who talks about his home life, where his mother hides his sexuality from his grandparents.
What I anticipate hearing in terms of negativity about the movie after release is likely diversity issues. While the cast is a real ethnic mix, Simon is white and from an affluent family. (Hell, her gets his sister a Cuisinart for Christmas.) The black theater teacher might as well be called Sassy Black Woman, even though she's likely the best adult in the movie. And honestly, in a different setting (read: rural area, with poor parents), this movie would have played out a lot differently. However, Simon's tale is honest and contains enough seeds of many folk's coming out stories, even these little detractions shouldn't interfere with people identifying with Simon or his story.
