Love, Simon Review

Love, Simon was the hit movie of 2018, with it being the first rom com with a gay teen protagonist to be produced by a major Hollywood studio. Although some critics say for a gay teen in commercial cinema, it is only the foot in the door. Love, Simon is based upon a gay teenager who is closeted; however, he does reach out to someone else like him through emails. They go through their coming out to family together, also whilst Simon is searching through his school for potential guys that he could possibly be, until eventually they both take the leap and meet where their whole story started.

With such a compelling love story that seeks out the troubles of young teens within the LGBT Community, there is also a beautifully composed soundtrack, with classics from ‘The Jackson 5’ and ‘Whitney Houston’ and four tracks from ‘Bleachers’. Jack Antonoff (Singer for Bleachers) contributed to five songs from the soundtrack, he originally had one which was played at the end of the film, except he got to go in to see the film in production, and as he had liked it so much, he wrote more to be featured.

This film was also the first to break the stereotypical mistletoe kiss of a man and woman with the song “Someday at Christmas” by The Jackson 5, as it was Simon imagining to kiss Cal, although the kiss didn’t exactly happen after his phone started ringing before they did.

Before the film had began shooting, they had to decide on the cast, Berlanti had said “my dream was to put the best of the class, of this young generation and each one of them knowing that they aren’t just going to have a moment to shine in the film, their career is in it of themselves to capture them at this moment in their life, before their own illustrious careers”. So when deciding on who would play the most important role as Simon, Director Greg Berlanti only had a short list of people and Nick Robinson was amongst those people and Berlanti had said that when Robinson came in for audition they felt he was perfect for the role as they could really feel his emotion he put in in helping to portray Simon.

Within the beginning of the film, there is an introduction sequence in which Simon is introducing the audience to his life through a voiceover, although there is also a track and video audio beneath them. During this introduction, the clips switch from a normal camera to a phone camera, they show the difference as the video quality on the phone camera is grainier compared to the high-quality film camera. As the introduction ends, there is a knock-on Simon’s door and they music stops as if his record player is being disrupted. Once Simon starts to email the unknown ‘Blue’, there are sequences throughout the film, where each person that he thinks is blue the scene changes to have a blue filter as he imagines each boy emailing him as ‘Blue’. This creates a calm atmosphere, as if we are entering Simon’s mind of what he finds as an escape from the hurt he puts on his friends.

There are a few times that the film almost breaks the fourth wall, with two of the characters talking to the camera, except they aren’t talking to the audience. For example the first time they do this is when Simon is in class and he is staring over at Bram imagining him type to him at a desk and Bram looks to the camera and says to Simon’s imagination “I can’t stop thinking about kissing you”. The second scene this takes place is when Simon is emailing Blue about coming out at college, and at the end of the dance sequence, Simon pauses and says to the camera as if talking to Blue and says “Yeah, maybe not that gay.”

Moving onto the cinematography side of the film, there is perfectly timed shot in the library, as Simon is dragging Martin to one of the aisle’s, there is a dolly shot from the right side of the library near the entrance, then to the left towards the aisle that Simon and Martin stop at. In another sequence after this, as Simon and Martin are walking down the hallway, there is use of a steadi-cam from in front and behind them as they reach the end of the hallway. There is lot of use of steadi-cam within the film as Berlanti had said it was to make the audience feel as if they are following Simon, or he is leading the audience through his story.

Another significant shot is when Simon’s secret is exposed, he is walking into the school and there is an aerial shot of this which shows students surrounding him, following him inside. When Simon does reach inside, there is also a shot of students staring at Simon as he walks towards the Headmaster, except these shots change into slow-motion as he passes them. This is done for the audience to see and feel the empathy the students have for Simon, also to show how scared he is towards how everyone is going to react.

At the scene of the carnival, there is a lot of blue lighting, especially around the Ferris Wheel to show a positive feeling to the audience as they wait for Blue to reveal who he is along with Simon and his school who stand to watch. As Simon and Blue (who revealed himself) are sat at the top of the Ferris Wheel together and they are sharing a kiss, the camera pulls away from them and fades out as it changes to the epilogue scenes. Right before the end credits start, the scene ends with Simon, Bram and their friends driving away in a car, and the camera lifts up into an establishing shot, showing the trees at the bottom of the frame and the cityscape of Atlanta filling the rest of the frame.

Overall, along with many other fans of this movie, my feedback is very positive, as someone who got to see this film in the cinema, I know that there were ranges of people who sat and enjoyed it, and there were definite tears from a lot of the audience who were fully engaged within the story. Especially as this the first gay protagonist film that Hollywood has produced, there was a lot of excitement for it, especially with Greg Berlanti as the Director who has worked on so many brilliant TV shows and Films previously.