Love, Simon **** (2018, Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel) – Movie Review

‘Dear Moviegoers, Please form a line at concessions. It doesn’t have to be straight. Love, Simon.’

Here’s to you, Mr Robinson. Can a whole movie hang on its hero’s smile and charm? Yes, apparently it can. Nick Robinson plays 17-year-old American teenager Simon Spier, who is tooth-achingly nice. Robinson is the personification of tooth-achingly nice. He plays is perfectly. He is 23 and doesn’t really look 17, but he fits the bill exactly.

You think you might want to hate Simon for being tooth-achingly nice, but Robinson makes sure you don’t. Luckily, nice he may be, but Simon – innocently and under stress – does a lot of bad stuff to his friends. So he’s human after all, and you don’t have to hate him at all, indeed you can love him if you want.

His three best friends love him – at least till he betrays them – and his parents (Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel) and little sister love him. Gosh, he’s loveable. There’s just one thing – he’s gay, and he’s keeping it a secret for now, but he finds a pal on-line, Blue, someone at his school. He’s no idea who he is, or what he looks like but he falls for him. He tells Blue that he is Jacques.

Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel work hard as Simon’s tooth-achingly nice parents, but these are subsidiary parts and the movie’s not really interested in these characters, only as opportunities for quality screen time for Simon. Fair enough, it is a coming-out romance for young people, and they’re not going to be interested in mom and dad, are they?

This is all a bit sad though for Garner and Duhamel, who were once cute young stars themselves. Garner and Duhamel are good, too good to be wasted. Nevertheless they are not entirely wasted. The film would be much poorer without them.

Nick Robinson plays 17-year-old American teenager Simon Spier in Love, Simon.

Simon meets his nemesis in the fragrantly repellent Martin (Logan Miller), another kid at the school, playing the obnoxious MC in the high school musical Cabaret, quite obnoxiously. There is quite a lot too much of an only fairly good thing in Logan Miller’s performance as Martin, though, I get it, he’s performing as asked, and he is, I suppose, the comedy villain, this being a comedy too by the way. It’s a bit too broad for what is quite a gently charming sort of film, but hey, it’s looking for an audience.

[Spoiler alert] After accidentally finding out that Simon is gay via a school computer (a bit weak this), Martin blackmails Simon into setting him up with his friend Abby (Alexandra Shipp). When that inevitably goes wrong, Martin puts all Simon’s emails to Blue out on the internet. Miller has to humanise his nasty little blackmailing creep of a character, and that’s hard. But, of course, the film and the tooth-achingly nice Simon forgive him.

It’s harder for Simon’s friends to forgive him, but of course eventually they do. Everybody forgives every else. Everybody understands. All is well, especially if you come out. Everybody will love you. Mmmm, really?

There is one other broad comedy turn in the film – Tony Hale as vice-principal Mr Worth. This role would have been much better played by a different actor, and played seriously. Hale is way too broad for what is quite a gently charming sort of film, but hey, it’s looking for an audience. 

The lapses of Miller and Hale are abundantly compensated for by sweet, well-judged performances by Katherine Langford as Simon’s best friend Leah, who has long had as secret thing for him, and Alexandra Shipp and Jorge Lendeborg Jr as his other, newer best friends Abby and Nick. Also good are Joey Pollari as a hunky waiter Simon likes, Keiynan Lonsdale as Bram and Miles Heizer as Cal, both of whom Simon briefly suspects is Blue. And Natasha Rothwell gets all her laughs as Ms Albright, the cynical producer of Cabaret, the school show the mostly talent-challenged kids are putting on.

[Spoiler alert] The story turns into a bit of a mystery, as we wait for the real Blue to fess up and finally appear. Simon’s at his wits end when Blue terminates his email account. Blue is his one remaining friend. He waits for him on the Ferris Wheel. Will he turn up at the big wheel? Will there be kisses before sunset?

Everyone deserves a great love story. Simon has got one. Love, Simon is easy to love.

Timothy Olyphant in The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000).

The screenplay is by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker, based on the novel Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, expertly balancing the laughs and the tears and the joy. It’s a shame they didn’t keep the novel’s title isn’t it? Only kidding!

It is smoothly directed by Greg Berlanti, also the maker of The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000, with Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain, Zach Braff and John Mahoney) and Life as We Know It (2010, also with Josh Duhamel).

Love, Simon came out on 16 March 2018 in the US and is coming out in the UK on 6 April.

On the soundtrack are: Alfie’s Song (Not So Typical Love Song) performed by Bleachers, Strawberries & Cigarettes Performed by Troye Sivan, Feel It Still performed by Portugal. The Man, I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) performed by Whitney Houston, Waterloo Sunset performed by The Kinks and Monster Mash performed by Bobby Pickett and the Crypt Kickers.

The BBC banned the Monster Mash record from airplay in 1962, saying the song was ‘too morbid’.

Horror punk band the Misfits recorded a cover version of Monster Mash in 1997 and in 1977 Vincent Price issued a version in UK on EMI Records.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com