The 52: Love, Simon
From June 2023 to June 2024 I'll be watching a lgbtqia+ film each week and coming back here with my thoughts, feelings and plenty of hopes we aren't met with the "kill your gays" trope. I call this The 52.
Simon: Hey, my name is Simon. My parents were super hot in high school.
Me: 👁️👄👁️
I resisted watching the highly lauded Love, Simon for a long time. I was a huge fan of the book when it came out and even did a Q&A with the author on my book blog (that’s here, if you want to read it) but when I sat down and tried to watch it a few years ago it just… was cringey and uncomfortable and not my cup of tea. Fast forward a good many years and I decided it was a must for the list, as (despite the discomfort I experience in that opening scene) this story meant a lot to me at one point in my life.
It was… very much an OK film.
Love, Simon follows Simon in his quest to find true love with Blue, the mysterious guy in his school who is out as gay but whose identity is hidden. Simon is closeted, but when he reads Blue’s message on the school… tumblr account? he emails him and the two strike up a friendship, a soulmate-ship, a romance. And Simon, desperate to work out who Blue might be, spends an agonising hour+ getting it wrong in every conceivable way.
Apparently I got it wrong, too, as I spent the whole film pointing to one guy and smiling smugly only for the downright winceably cringey ending to come out of nowhere and fling me to the heavens atop a ferris wheel. I think the guy I picked out as Blue would’ve been a better match, just saying.
Simon’s relationship with his family is lovely, but also undestanably confusing. He tells his sister at every meal how much he loves her food as he takes a single bite, declares its the best he’s ever tasted and practically runs for the door (I'm serious), and both of his parents seem to give him the cold shoulder when he comes out (I think they see it as giving him space?), although the scene where he talks with his mother? Jennifer Garner was everything and celestial, her emotion at the forefront of that being my favourite scene in the whole film.
This film also deals with blackmail and the pressure of being outed. A kid in school gets wind of Simon writing to Blue and promises to tell everyone Simon is gay unless he helps him get a date with one of his friends. This wasn’t a plot point I remember from the book and it made me really unhappy, not because it’s unrealistic but because it was so brutal, and because the consequences of this blackmail are… nothing. The guy almost becomes a friend to Simon, coming to him in a time of need when everyone else is silent, and just… no. No thank you. Burn it.
Simon’s friends, too, are a terrible bunch of humans. Picture it: Simon is put in an impossible situation, and he absolutely could have handled it better, absolutely - he is at fault to a certain degree - but every one of his friends, including the girl he’s been best friends with since, like, kindergarten, ice him out when they find out he lied. And again, zero repercussions for these “friends” as Simon’s whole world literally falls apart, as he is targeted for homophobic based bullying (which they watch, silently), because the moment he chose to not be forced out of the closet by the guy blackmailing him he, I dunno, sold his soul and all of theirs as well? I can understand their anger, but the comparison with the lies he told vs what he was being made to choose between aren’t equal, yet we’re asked to believe they are. And we are asked to love his friends in the end, when they show no remorse.
Love, Simon made me sad. It placed a weight in my chest that no coming of age film has the right to create.
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