Love you, Simon

Movie posters

When I saw Variety magazine describe "Love You, Simon" as a film that was "a landmark on every level," my heart was broken: Aren't you afraid to kill?

The first time I watched "Love You, Simon" was at the Sydney Gay Carnival at the end of February. On a summer day, I went to the biggest cinema in the city half an hour early to queue up, and the mighty crowd lined up from the door to the street, feeling that half of the Sydney guys were smelling the wind. Behind me, a pair of grandfathers kept waving rainbow fans, and the organizers of the poisonous tongue wanted them to smile just after they got married. Yet all the resentment was swept away after the film began: laughter, applause and whistles echoed throughout the auditorium, as if it were a grand party. It is in this atmosphere that even if some flaws are found in the process of watching the movie, I do not hesitate to give five stars.

In the next few weeks, with the fermentation of media word of mouth, I could not sit still, and even felt frightened: this is an ordinary campus movie, where is it worthy of your screen-swiping praise? On the weekend after the official release of "Love You, Simon", I went to the cinema again to verify my judgment, and when I walked into the movie hall, my eyes were black: the last six rows were densely packed with little girls (I later learned that the entire class of the nearby girls' high school came). I looked around, and there were only a few same-sex couples, and more of them were standard male and female couples (I had three pairs in this row). When the big screen began to play the opening of 20th Century Fox, a cool teenager ran in with his mother's hand and sat down in the first row.

These people — unlike gay carnival — were the audience after the official release of "Love You, Simon." At that moment I think I could understand why it became a "milestone": it was the first mainstream gay film to be produced and distributed by a major Hollywood studio, simultaneously screened in 2402 theaters across the United States, and rated PG13. A 9th grader (junior second year) can buy a ticket to enter, and there are theaters on both the east and west coasts and the isolated inland. Its significance from the beginning is not how artistic it is, but in the use of popular methods to package niche stories, but also to ensure that the public does not lose interest in this story - this is a "parody game" of gay films with the power of capital, facing the general public, and campus genre films. So "Love You, Simon" is destined to be out of the same coordinate system as Brokeback Mountain, 120 Hits Per Minute, and Call Me By Your Name; it's located closer to Spring Is Not a Reading Day, The Breakfast Club, and Ten Things I Hate You—except that the protagonist of Love You, Simon "happens" to be gay.

This point is emphasized because I believe that for those who are accustomed to gay movies, "Love You, Simon" will be very insufficient: it has no guns to talk to, no homophobic violence, no darkness that is excluded by the world, no bed scenes where the sky and thunder trigger the earth; it only has a come-out story that is warm like a fairy tale but cannot be applied to everyone. This is the flaw I said at the beginning - it is too eager to please the mainstream audience, too eager to show the positive energy of comrades, so that it has lost the real edges and corners of this group. But I wouldn't dismiss the film's efforts to find the greatest common denominator, when in fact simon's scene with his father came out and brought me to tears (twice). It and "Call Me By Your Name" Elio's long conversation with his father became the most touching father-son segment in my heart. If Elio's father is sensible, Simon's father is emotional, and it is the presence of these screen images that makes me dare to assert that whether a gay film is mainstream or not, the core of love, longing for love, understanding love and respect for love will still be preserved intact.

In the last century, an American drama with homosexuals as the protagonist was also given landmark significance. Many have accused it of being too rigid in its portrayal of the gay community and making too frivolous gay jokes, but these have not prevented it from becoming one of the most highly rated and widely reached sitcoms in the United States. "Will and Grace", which began in 1998, made the audience fall in love with gay men, made women long for friends, and made "gay aesthetics" a positive word, but in the words of the screenwriter: "In order to ensure the largest audience, homosexuals can only feel represented, and heterosexuals can only feel tolerated." "Will and Grace is the product of genre and compromise, but it doesn't compromise on its classics and the laughter it brings. It took exactly twenty years for the big screen to learn to embrace the logic of the small screen, and "Love You, Simon" is more like a belated gift.

Simon in the movie is lucky: he has enlightened parents, a thoughtful sister and friends who accept him unconditionally, and he doesn't come out just because he is afraid of change, and once he decides, he will not hesitate. Falling in love with blue, a pen pal who also did not come out, the process of finding Blue also witnessed Simon's growth. "Love, Simon" is the drop in his last letter to Blue (Love Your Simon), and when he signs his real name, the viewer seems to be able to see his future shining brightly not far away. "Love You, Simon" is a non-mainstream coming out story, it does not copy our painful struggles as people who have come over, but carries the belief of "It Gets Better": coming out will one day become a small thing, and doing yourself does not need to be turned upside down. In fact, during the filming of the movie, two of Blue's three actors came out, and the brother of male lead actor Nick Robinson also came out with his family. You see, isn't it great to have such a life-changing movie?

When the movie ends, the lights come on, and I see the mother sitting in the first row kissing her son's cheek, and I smile like a dog at that moment. Love you, Simon.