LOVE, SIMON

Nick Robinson     Josh Duhamel     Jennifer Garner     Talitha Bateman

Katherine Langford     Alexandra Shipp     Logan Miller     Kelynan Lonsdale     Jorge Lendeborg, Jr.

    Unlike many films about teens, Love, Simon is mostly a realistic portrayal, with occasional gems of wisdom about how people in general think, act, and feel.  Simon (Robinson) is an appealing teenager with good friends, a wholesome family life, and enough talent to stand out in a crowd.  He has been brought up well, and only occasionally displays the sulk American adolescents are known for.  But, he is coming to the realization that he is attracted to boys and doesn’t quite know what to do about it.

   Enter a clueless wannabe Martin (Miller), who gains access to Simon’s personal information and proceeds to blackmail Simon, manipulating him to get a girl for Martin.  This will be matchmaking hell for Simon, but he is naïve and thinks he can pull it off—just to keep his secret, secret.

     Added to this scenario, are pictures of high school in general—hallway encounters, the cafeteria, the school play, and parties.  Based on a book by Becky Albertalli, a clinical psychologist whose experience includes a specialty in children and teens and work in a high school, it comes across as plausible and a perceptive understanding of life in that realm.  Screenwriters Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker seem to have preserved many of the basic ideas, although I have a hunch that some scenes/characters were add-ons, such as the goofus vice principal (parody of a fool) and the sweet reveal and tie-up-with-a-bow ending.

     The director, Greg Berlanti, and screenwriters have a background in producing and writing for television, and in some ways, Love, Simon resembles a television program or series more than a feature film.  That is a way of saying that the story is delightfully entertaining, although it has “bite” as well in its observations about teens and high school life and the profound experience of facing/establishing one’s identity.  A special treat is seeing Simon trying to identify his anonymous correspondent on social media.  He makes the same mistakes that many of us have in trying to decide whether an acquaintance or friend is gay.

     Nick Robinson is well cast as Simon, with just the right balance of naïveté, trust, skepticism, and doubt in a coming-of-age teenager.  With his success in The Kings of Summer, he should have a bright future.  Other standouts among the teens are Katherine Langford as Leah, Simon’s life-long friend; Alexandra Shipp, the precocious sex symbol; and Logan Miller as the cringe-worthy budding sociopath.  Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel handle the not particularly challenging roles of mother and father to Simon.

     This is a film that will appeal to those interested in expanding their tolerance and understanding of alternative identities that go beyond simply male and female. 

A budding romance a little outside the norm.

Grade:  B+                        By Donna R. Copeland

BRIGSBY BEAR

Kyle Mooney     Mark Hamill   Greg Kinnear   Matt Walsh   Michaela Watkins   Jorge Lendeborg   Claire Danes

     This film comes at you out of left field.  The basic story is interesting, in that a childless couple kidnapped a baby from birth, rearing it as their own.  However, they’re a bit off their rockers and keep the child fearful about the outdoors and other people, and locked in a basement, which begins the weirdness of the tale.  The next eerie part is that the father, a professor at a college, “produces” a children’s show for James (Mooney) called Brigsby.  James doesn’t know his father is producing it; he only sees the videotapes.  It goes on for years until James is a young adult, who is completely enamored of the show.  The parents even create an audience that makes it seem like the show is a major hit.

     This goes on until the astute detective Vogel (Kinnear) becomes suspicious of some of the father’s actions, and discovers James’ true parents before he was kidnapped by the Mitchums.  He breaks this news to James gently and then connects him with Greg (Walsh) and Louise (Watkins) Pope.  This will be a difficult transition because James has not been out in the world before and appears to be much younger than his age, the Popes are nervously trying their best to make him feel welcome—not their daughter, who shows understandable ambivalence toward him—and James’ primary interest is in the Brigsby Bear saga.  When he finds out from his new friend Spencer (Lendeborg) that anyone can make movies, he becomes obsessed with continuing the saga on his own.  The problem with the latter is that all the props are being held by the police as evidence in the prosecution of the Mitchums.

     The rest of the film is about James’ continuing orientation to the real world and his new family’s getting used to him; his and Spencer’s and their friends’ efforts to get actors and props, resulting in James’ incarceration in a mental hospital; and how all this gets worked out.

     Many of the filmmakers (director Dave McCary, writers Kyle Mooney and Kevin Costello) have been associated with the television show “Saturday Night Live”, and this movie seems like an extended version of one of their skits with its fancifulness, its raw humor, and thinness in substance.  For example, the idea that someone with James’ history could suddenly become a moviemaker with a hit is fanciful.  Raw humor occurs when a young woman (maybe even a high school student) seduces him at a party, which does not end well, partly because someone gave him a drug.  Real substance is lacking, in that it’s not clear what the point of the film is (no underlying principle or thought), and there are obvious omissions, such as James—who had a very positive relationship and bonding with the Mitchums—experiences no grief in being separated from them.  It happens quickly, and he is informed by a police detective instead of someone skilled in that type of work.  There was some promise in the Popes’ engaging a therapist (Danes) to help James, but she wasn’t skilled either; she’s a typical Hollywood invention of a therapist.

Brigsby Bear is an extended Saturday Night Live skit not ready to be a feature length movie.

Grade:  D+                                    By Donna R. Copeland