Love, Simon (2018)
Running Time: 1hr 50mins
Simon (Nick Robinson) is your typical high school boy who comes from a good family and has a close-knit group of friends. The only exception to his normalcy is the huge secret he has been keeping from them. Simon reads a confessional post on the school’s website, Creek’s Secrets, from a fellow student using the pseudonym, Blue (Keiynan Lonsdale), professing to be gay. He relates to Blue’s metaphor comparing life to a ride on a ferris wheel, where sometimes we feel like we’re on top of the world and sometimes we’re at the bottom. Simon is immediately drawn to this unknown person and finds comfort in their shared secret and perspectives. He creates his own pseudonym and the two begin exchanging emails. A connection forms between the two which increases Simon’s desire to find out who Blue's true identity. When Simon accidently leaves his email open at school, another student, Martin (Logan Miller), discovers Simon’s secret. Martin uses the information to blackmail Simon into helping him get closer to Simon’s friend, Abby (Alexandra Shipp).
Simon continuously, yet unsuccessfully, tries to figure out who Blue really is, while also helping his friends try to navigate their own high school love triangles. When Martin professes his feelings for Abby at homecoming and discovers she doesn’t feel the same way, his displaced anger leads him to outing Simon and sharing his emails with Blue for the whole school to read. Simon eventually embraces his truth and shares his secret with his parents. He also addresses his peers by writing to them on the school’s website and acknowledges not only that he is gay, but about how afraid he had been to come out sooner. Simon earns the respect of his family and friends and invites Blue to meet him at the carnival after the school play so they can stop hiding from each other and from everyone else. Blue turns out to be...
I enjoyed the movie a lot more than I thought I would and would Absolutely recommend it. A teenage drama isn’t usually on my list of must-see movies. However, the feelings and circumstances that Simon dealt with throughout the movie are not limited to just teenagers. I found that I was able to connect to his character more than I expected to. For example, Simon questioned why gay people have to be the ones to come out and tell the world who they are and why being straight is considered the default lifestyle. I’m sure that I’m not the only other gay person to have ever asked myself this same question.
Another significant moment in the movie was after Simon came out to his parents and he and his mom were having a conversation in which he told her, “I am still me.” She agreed and reminded Simon, “You get to exhale now and get to be more you than you’ve been in a very long time. You deserve everything you want.” If only all parents could be so loving, supportive, and encouraging. Anyone who has ever had to keep a meaningful secret before knows how incredibly wonderful it feels when the weight is lifted off your chest—when you can finally exhale. And that’s when you really feel like you’re on top of the ferris wheel.
