The sort of goofball character one is more likely to find in a Nickelodeon series than in real life, Martin isn’t a bad person per se, but he does an unconscionable thing, exploiting the situation and blackmailing Simon into helping him arrange a date with out-of-his-league friend Abby (Alexandra Shipp). Simon and Blue’s sweet e-pistolary relationship is only just beginning when Simon makes a stupid error and leaves his Gmail account open on a library computer, narrowly avoiding the nosy gaze of vice principal Worth (Tony Hale, a highlight), while inadvertently outing himself to class weirdo Martin (Logan Miller). Naturally, Simon is dying to know who the other closeted student might be, and to throw audiences off the scent, Blue’s letters are read by different voices throughout the film, depending on who Simon suspects he might be at any given time. Simon signs his letters “Jacques,” while his new pen pal calls himself “Blue.” (There is one openly gay student at Simon’s Atlanta high school, played by Clark Moore, but he isn’t Simon’s type - Simon clearly has more hangups than simply being gay, but what teenager doesn’t?) In what passes for the 21st-century equivalent of lovers meeting at a masquerade ball, the two teens start to fall for one another online, sharing feelings they’ve never dared to speak aloud without knowing one another’s names. It all starts when Simon (who fantasizes about the hunk with the leaf blower who tends his neighbor’s yard, making it pretty clear from the outset that this isn’t just some phase that can be prayed away) discovers a revealing post by a fellow student on the school’s gossip blog: Though the author doesn’t sign his name, he admits to being gay and opens up about the way it makes him feel.Įmboldened by his mystery classmate’s candor, Simon decides to contact the author of the post - under the safety of a pseudonym. Lucky for Simon (played by an affable, easy-to-identify-with Nick Robinson), even his home situation is healthy, considering that his parents (played by Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner) are still together and remain supportive at all times - though nothing they say can hold a candle to the father-son heart-to-heart in “Call Me by Your Name.”Ĭonveniently enough, the only real conflict is Simon’s secret, and the fact that he’s developing a virtual crush on another kid at school. The first studio-made, teen-targeted romantic comedy to focus on a closeted gay protagonist coming out in high school, “Love, Simon” proves groundbreaking on so many levels, not least of which is just how otherwise familiar it all seems, from laugh-out-loud conversations in the school hallways to co-ed house parties where no one drives drunk, and no one gets past first base. As such, he doesn’t have a lifetime of positive pop-culture representations coaching him on how to assume his true identity. But what about Simon Spier, the handsome, well-liked high-school senior at the center of writer-director Greg Berlanti’s “Love, Simon”? He has “a perfectly normal life” in all ways but one: Simon is gay. By the time your average American teen experiences his or her first kiss, they’ve probably seen hundreds, if not thousands, of heterosexual smooches on screen.
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