How is it that "Love, Simon" is likely the very first mainstream, wide-release studio release featuring a teenage lead character who happens to be gay? This shattered glass ceiling is a long time coming and, fortunately, the breakthrough film in question is more than worthy of carrying this proud torch. Sensitive and touching, gratifying and resoundingly honest, this big-screen adaptation of Becky Albertalli's acclaimed 2015 novel "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" gets just about every emotion right in its story of a 17-year-old boy navigating the tricky terrain of coming of age while coming into his sexuality. The care and affection director Greg Berlanti (2010's "Life as We Know It," TV's "Riverdale") and scribes Elizabeth Berger & Isaac Aptaker (TV's "This Is Us") bring to this material is unmistakable in every frame, and they are uplifted all the more with an excellent cast led by Nick Robinson (2015's "Jurassic World") as the eponymous protagonist.
Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) feels as if he's living a double life. He has known he is gay for several years (his first preteen crush: Daniel Radcliffe), but he has continued to keep this part of who he is a secret from everyone—parents Emily (Jennifer Garner) and Jack (Josh Duhamel); younger sister Nora (Talitha Bateman); best friends Leah (Katherine Langford), Abby (Alexandra Shipp) and Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.)—in fear that it might change his relationships to them. It's Simon's senior year, and as graduation lurks on the horizon he finds a soulful online connection with a fellow gay student who posts an anonymous message on their school's social-media site. Although neither party has revealed his identity, Simon cannot help but sense he is falling in love for the first time. When the personal emails he has written to his mystery pen-pal fall into the hands of nerdy classmate Martin (Logan Miller), Martin begins a blackmailing scheme, threatening to go public with Simon's private messages—and, by extension, outing him—if he doesn't agree to help him get closer to Abby.
See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review
