Review: Love, Simon

Love, Simon (2018) - Greg Berlanti

         I've had some conversations lately about the state of gay representation in popular culture. My roommate (who I swear exists) is sick of how most movies or TV shows about gay people are either completely kitschy and campy or super dire. And it's true, even a movie like Call Me By Your Name, which is a fantastic, thoughtful, and important movie, is about a torrid, underage love affair. There is a complete nadir or normal love stories involving gay people. Which, in 2018, is pretty much ridiculous. There's still this stigma about it and pop culture, while massively useful, still isn't representing this humongous group of people the way it should. Which is part of the reason Love, Simon works so fucking well. 20 years ago this could have been a completely serviceable hetero normative She's All That-esque high school romance flick, but in today it finally serves to show that gay people can have a normal love story too, and I really loved it.

       Nick Robinson stars as Simon, a totally normal teenager. I know this because the movie makes a point of telling us just how normal everything in his life is (note: It is not normal to have a house that big, a room that dope, and parents who look like Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel, that's not normal at all). He hangs with his friends, does theatre, drinks too much iced coffee, and aimlessly drives around in his shitty car (okay that part does sound just like high school to me). But Simon's been keeping his homosexuality from everyone a secret, and it's clearly starting to get to him. Well one day on Creeksecrets.com (I graduated from high school about a million years ago so I can't be sure, but is it normal for a high school to have a salacious gossip blog in 2018? I'd accept answers in the comments, but if anyone reading these reviews is still in high school I'm going to pour gasoline on my laptop and the internet and burn it all down) a student writes an anonymous letter telling everyone he's gay and not ready to come out yet. From there Simon starts a pen pal relationship with the original post writer, Blue, as Simon calls him, while also trying to figure out who he might really be in the high school.

       This is a good movie. This movie's absolute best quality is that its sweet. It takes (almost every, I'll get to that soon) each character seriously and doesn't make light of the things happening to them, even though they're only in high school. The movie very successfully gives us the weight of high school problems, dating, first love, lying, rumours, popularity, but also never makes it obtuse or overwrought. This movie is certainly a drama (and a romance, and also a comedy), but it never feels too dramatic for the sake of drama, and that's unbelievably refreshing. Even without it knocking over the head with dire EMOTIONS, I still basically cried the entire second half of the movie. It was just very, very sweet.
       One of the best things about this movie is that it doesn't have to be a "gay" movie to function well. The main character could easily be a girl (or the mystery blogger a girl) and the movie wouldn't really change much at all. Of course it shouldn't do that, the fact that its about a kid trying to come to terms with himself is one of the crutches of the whole movie, I just want to point out that a love story can still just be a love story, the idea that it's between two males doesn't need to be shocking or different. Our expectations of seeing homosexual relationships on screen is what has been different, so I'm glad the movie doesn't let itself veer off path too much from being just a romantic teenage movie as well as a really strong story about accepting yourself.

       Which is the other best part of the movie: Simon's struggle to come out and be true to himself in front of his friends and families. It's another way the movie is very smart; for Simon his biggest concern is people seeing him differently after he comes out, which, while not everyone who sees this movie will be a gay person who's had to come out, I think everyone can relate to being afraid people aren't going to like you once they find out who you really are. The reason this movie works so well (and why I cried so goddamn much) is because it's smart enough to find relatability in every story line, regardless who's the emotional center of it.
       There's one story line in the movie involving an annoying classmate and blackmail that honestly, in my opinion, goes on way too long. They try to make it a normal part of the story, but honestly the fact that a high-schooler is blackmailing a gay student into helping him or threatening to out him is so morally reprehensible, and there's so little consequence for all of it, that it just becomes kind of angering. And it causes Simon to act like a total dick, lying all around town and whatnot. It's understandable, and Simon eventually does have to face the music, but the kid who actually outed someone doesn't? It's narratively frustrating, especially because this is mostly a movie about nice kids being nice. It doesn't quite fit, but it doesn't ruin it or anything either.

       The end of the movie even has a big spectacle scene where people watch and cheer Simon on as he hopefully finds love with Blue. I hate movies that end in public spectacle, I hate them so much, but even Love, Simon found a way to make the end surprising, exciting, and of course, so goddamn sweet and endearing that I didn't even mind when everyone in the movie and everyone in the movie theatre started fucking clapping at the climax. It had definitely earned it. Love, Simon earns all the laughs and tears it mustered, and I hope more Hollywood movies like this continue to be made and released. It can only lead to good things.

7 out of 10 Different Times I Cried During This Movie
     

Review: Lady Bird

Lady Bird (2017) - Greta Gerwig

       Sooo I know we like to have fun here. We like to tell jokes, shoot the shit, have a good time. Wait, what? It's only me? Well either way, this is a safe place for non-sensicalness. However, the movie Lady Bird, the first time directorial effort from accomplished actress and seemingly-all-around-lovely-person Greta Gerwig (Frances, Ha, Greenberg, 20th Century Women), has truly put me in an odd spot. I loved this movie so much, I found it so refreshing, accurate, and relatable, that I have nary a funny or silly thing to say in reviewing it. This movie is funny, it's sad, it has so much earnest emotion behind it and feels so specific and personally crafted that it feels almost erroneous to try and make jokes about it. Buuuuuut, like this movie proves, a person has got to try and be who they are and figure things out on your own, whether it be living your truth regardless of your family's beliefs, standing up for yourself as an individual against your parents ideas for you, or realizing the guy you're dating is actually just a piece of shit like Jess from Gilmore Girls. God, remember Jess from Gilmore Girls? That show really keyed into exactly how fuckable Milo Ventimiglia was going to grow up to be...
       And I did it! I made a joke about wanting to fuck a former 23-year-old playing a high schooler in an overwrought sitcom from when this movie took place! BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. BABY.
       Lady Bird is maybe the best movie I've seen this year. It is surely destined to attain classic status in the genre of "Coming of Age," though I don't want that title to sound reductive. This movie is as much about adults as it is teenagers. It's thoughtful and funny, it's sweet but not saccharine, dramatic but oh-so believable. If it sounds like I'm gushing, it's because I am. I loved this movie so, so much. And for anyone who reads these blogs (I'm positive I'm the only one. Yes, I reread my own blog posts, sue me. Please don't sue me. I'm very poor) you know that me actually loving something is very, very rare.
       Saoirse Ronan is the titular Lady Bird, a high school senior local to Sacramento who hates Sacramento with all her heart. She even changed her name from Christine to Lady Bird in an obviously teenage attempt to define herself as an individual. She dreams of going to school on the far superior (because it's new) East Coast. In the meantime she goes to Catholic school, joins a play, has her first serious boyfriend, learns about sex, and everything else that happens to people in their formative years. The loose plot lends all of its time and energy to creating incredible characters. I don't want this review to turn into The Chris Farley show, but it really is an impressive feat Greta Gerwig has pulled off. Every character, seriously, every fucking character is well-conceived and understandable. I have empathy for basically every person on that screen, even the football coach forced into directing the school musical, who cheers with fists raised when his star nails his big solo (like I said, it's a funny movie).

       There are two main things I think this movie has working for it. Number one, and most important, is how specifically personal Gerwig makes it. It's dead set in the middle of Sacramento with references and shots that probably have a great deal of meaning if you grew up there (which I did not) which somehow still seem to resonate just as strongly for anyone. This movie is so personal yet so relatable, which, trust me, is an incredibly difficult tight rope balancing act to accomplish. t's not easy to make people feel like they know a place they've never been to, but Lady Bird does it so easily. The movie also takes place during 2002-2003, when, I feel confidant in guessing, is when Greta Gerwig was a senior in high school. In fact, everything that happens in this movie feels like it happened to Gerwig, which is so refreshing and honest and makes the movie endlessly entertaining.
       The other thing in the movie that works so well is every relationship that's presented. Saoirse Ronan fucking KILLS it in this movie, and it's so clearly evidenced by how genuine all of her interactions come across with others, even when she's lying about knowing who The Doors are to seem cool (read: a high schooler). I want every movie to star Saoirse Ronan. She is my favorite person named Saoirse, ever (Have you seen Brooklyn? Oh my god that movie is so good just typing its title makes me wanna have a nice cry). The movie is as much about her relationship with her mother as it is about her and her best friend Julie, or her budding romances. And the movie never short changes any of these relationships, they're all fully formed and in one way or another remind me of of my life.
       Her relationship with her mother, amazingly portrayed by Laurie Metcalf, is one of the highest points of the film. It feels like such an authentic relationship. In the first scene they literally go from crying together over The Grapes of Wrath on cassette (so funny) to the daughter jumping out of the moving car to avoid being criticized moments later. It's hilarious, yes, but also so representatively perfect of what it feels like to be stuck in the car with your mother for hours on end. Their interactions are frustrating and often sad, with both women to blame at different times for their rifts, but it's also so heartbreakingly sweet. GODDAMN IT I HATE HOW MUCH I LOVED THIS MOVIE.

       My favorite thing about this movie is how similar it feels to my own life. And that's where the magic really happens: How do you make something so specific (2002, free spirit girl who's a high school senior, Sacramento, Catholic school, struggling family) so easy for others to relate to? I really only relate to the 2002 and high school part and this movie still made me feel like I was growing up all over again. This movie is truly for anyone who has ever had to grow up (read: everybody) regardless of when or how, and that's because it's just that good.
       The OTHER best part of this movie (seriously, I'm sorry, I know this is a boring review that is just sucking this movie's cock) is Jon Brion's score. I don't know if you guys know this, but if a movie has a score by Jon Brion, it's probably going to be a great movie (Eternal Sunshine, Magnolia, I Heart Huckabees, Punch-Drunk Love). It just adds the perfect note of melancholy beauty that only Jon Brion can whimsically imbue in his scores. I could have closed my eyes the whole time and still loved this movie.
       Ugh, I'm sick of hearing myself right now. Have I gushed enough? Probably not, but this seems like a good place to stop. I loved this movie. Thank you Greta Gerwig. Don't stop acting as well, but please, please, please don't stop making personal, funny, attentive movies like this one, either. Goddamn.

Grade: 100 out of 100 pink casts and gay boyfriends

2002 ALERT! Things that made me groan or giggle with nostalgic glee:
Pooka shell necklaces!
Crash by Dave Matthews!
9/11! (Okay there was no GLEE involved, but still, totally captured the era)
Clove cigarettes!
Going to Denny's after school plays!
Cry Me a River by JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.

"Sacramento is the Midwest of California."
"Some people just aren't built happy."
"I like dry humping so much better." Me too, dude. Me too.