Love, Simon

Stars: Nick Robinson, Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Garner, Tony Hale, Talitha Bateman

Director: Greg Berlanti

17-year-old Simon is gay but has yet to come out to family or friends. Instead, resorting to the potentially dangerous age of the internet, he opens up about his sexual identity on the school's blog site via a computer and, apparently, finds his new true love 'Blue' and begins an online relationship with his anonymous classmate - only to be blackmailed by a fellow pupil who wants his help in romancing a (female) classmate.

Thanks to Robinson's perfect and, above all, convincing characterisation, along with fine work on both sides of the camera, what then happens to him as he is faced with trying to resolve the problems, caused both at home and at school when he is outed, make for alternatively funny, depressing but ultimately fascinating and surprisingly mature for a mainstream American movie.

Armed with an emotionally effective screenplay by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker (based on Becky Albertalli's novel Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda - a title sensibly changed for the screen) and ideal casting, director Berlanti doesn't put a frame wrong in delivering a different, charming, amusing and, above all, believable teen coming-of-age story.

Alan Frank

USA 2018. UK Distributor: 20th Century Fox. Colour.
104 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 1, Swearing 2.

Review date: 09 Aug 2018

DVD review