The latest YA-lit hit adaptation is heralded as being a bold, honest (for Hollywood) depiction of the ordinary gay teenage experience - ordinary if you happen to live in a huge beige house with three cars in the drive and Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel as your parents - and it at least represents some small if notable steps forward. It is earnest and sincere, but it is also featherweight and feels somewhat long to watch. As Simon, Nick Robinson is a very capable and likeable young actor who carries the movie extremely well being in almost every scene, and the rest of the cast is effective, the only jarring character being a dreadful comedy vice-principal who feels completely out of place and tone. With friends and family proving to be, of course, exceptionally liberal and supportive, the more traumatic moments of Simon's (enforced) coming out are overcome relatively easily, and the identity of Simon's online friend Blue is not too hard to work out. Love, Simon is well-meaning and enjoyable enough overall, but more dramatic heft would have been welcome.
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