It’s as if Berlanti is daring audiences to find anything objectionable in what amounts to a thoroughly family-friendly queer film. The film looks and sounds like so many other mainstream, John Hughes-nostalgic high-school-coms you’ve seen on both big and small screens, just with one difference: The hero is gay. And while there inevitably will be grumbles from those who would have preferred a grittier portrayal of the gay adolescent experience, Love, Simon’s vanilla-ness is also what makes it culturally significant, and even slightly subversive. If any LGBT-themed pic has a shot at conquering red-state hearts - a long shot - it may be this one aside from a relatively chaste same-sex kiss and a reference to “butt sex,” it’s a very wholesome PG-13. How Love, Simon fares commercially will, in part, be a test of whether Americans outside urban “bubbles” are interested in stories of ordinary gay folks looking for love. Historically, the LGBT films that have raked in the most money are the ones that boasted attention-grabbing hooks (“gay cowboy movie” Brokeback Mountain) or conformed to certain gay narratives the public was comfortable with (dying of AIDS in Philadelphia South Beach flamboyance in The Birdcage). But taken on its own, limited terms, Love, Simon is also a charmer - warm, often funny and gently touching, tickling rather than pummeling your tear ducts. In other words, it’s an expertly carved chunk of cheese. The movie was directed by Greg Berlanti (the prolific writer-producer behind Dawson’s Creek, Brothers & Sisters, The Flash and more), penned by a pair of This Is Us scribes and produced by the people who brought you The Fault in Our Stars. the Homo Sapiens Agenda) touted as the first major-studio-backed romantic comedy with a gay teen protagonist. Of course, those are all art house items - which, in the multiplex-littered landscape of American movies, means limited box-office potential.Įnter a different beast entirely: Love, Simon, a sweet, slick, broadly appealing YA adaptation (Becky Albertalli’s 2015 novel was called Simon vs. With critical darling Call Me by Your Name, foreign standouts BPM (Beats Per Minute) and A Fantastic Woman and underseen indie beauties like God’s Own Country and Princess Cyd, 2017 was a hearteningly good year for queer cinema.
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