LGBT TEEN DRAMA

FILM BLAZES NEW TRIAL

With their playful nature and unparalleled ability to suspend exactly two people who may or may not have feelings for one another at least 30 metres in the air—conveniently isolating them, for the time being, from any meddling forces underneath—ferris wheels are a well-worn trope in the realm of romantic comedies and teen dramas. There’s Jesse and Céline’s first kiss on the world-famous Wiener Riesenrad in Before Sunrise; Marissa soothing Ryan’s fear of heights with a casual makeout sesh on The O.C. And who could forget Noah forcing himself between Allie and her date midair to effectively blackmail the southern belle into going out with him in The Notebook? (We said the theme is tired, not always unproblematic.)

So when it came time for Greg Berlanti to bring to life a pivotal scene of Love, Simon—in which Simon Spier (Nick Robinson), a recently outed high-school senior, boards the amusement ride to await the arrival (or nonarrival) of “Blue”, his anonymous pen-pal crush—the director wanted to approach the act from an alternate angle. That is, until he realized that leaving it as is, and turning the typically heteronormative device on its head, worked even better.

“We wanted to do something different because we’ve seen Ferris wheels before, and I thought, ‘What about this? What about that?’” explains Berlanti, who’s no stranger to such idealistic clips, given his work on the earlyaughts drama Everwood, during a stop in town at the Shangri-la Hotel. “And I really came back to the Ferris wheel, thinking, in a way, ‘No, no, that’s what makes so much sense about it.’ It’s what we’ve seen before, but it’s different now with two guys on it—without saying who they are.”

That climactic sequence isn’t the only thing “different” about Love, Simon, opening Friday (March 16), which is based on Becky Albertalli’s 2015 young-adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. A gay comingof-age tale that follows the 16-year-old closeted Simon as he learns to embrace his sexuality, the film centres on a coming-out story that is sorely lacking on silver screens. However, it’s not just much-needed LGBT representation that Love, Simon offers: there are laughs, suspense, and heartwarming exchanges as the audience is left wondering who Blue is once Simon and the unnamed, also closeted classmate begin corresponding daily via email. (We’re presented a few options in the forms of soccer player Bram, drama kid Cal, and diner server Lyle.)

It all comes to a head in the aforementioned Ferris-wheel scene, which trails a messy web of lies that compromises Simon’s closest friendships. “I was rooting for Simon to find the person—whoever Blue is— and that it was going to be the right guy,” says actor Keiynan Lonsdale, who plays Bram, during an interview alongside Berlanti.

For Berlanti, who is openly gay, and the Aussie-born Lonsdale, who identifies as bi, the significance of this LGBT experience being broadcast in cinemas cannot be overstated. “From childhood, you turn on your TV and you feel slightly isolated from the characters you’re watching, and so you feel separated like maybe you don’t belong,” explains Lonsdale. “I think kids pick up these pieces and start to log them internally, and I think that then goes into your teenage years and then into your adulthood. It’s not something that you’re then able to express, so having a movie like this—it changes the narrative for so many people and hopefully inspires more of these stories.”

“I think there’s something really visceral about not having to imagine a side character maybe going through this, but just experiencing a character that’s got similarities to you,” adds Berlanti. “And you don’t have to do this extra math in your head when you’re watching the movie of, like, ‘Okay, she’s a girl but what if it was a guy and that’s another guy?’”

Considering the staggering amount of time it’s taken a major film studio to green-light an LGBT flick geared toward teens, the two hope that Love, Simon—ferris-wheel sequence and all—will stand the test of time, too. “When I think back to all the YA [young-adult] films that I grew up with—those John Hughes– y kind of ones, just great romantic comedies in general—they weren’t just about those two hours in the movie theatre,” says Berlanti. “They were ones I thought back on the rest of my life. They’d come on TV… and I’d feel like I’m 15 again. And I hope [Love, Simon] is one of those. I hope it connects with people, and really, that it lives with them for a long time afterwards.”

“It wasn’t really that long ago that these issues were much more in-your-face and much more heartbreaking and much more imbalanced,” states Lonsdale. “And so I think we forget how recent that was, and we’re growing as a society and changing. It just takes time. And it’s amazing that, so far, the reception [for Love, Simon] has been really beautiful. Everyone’s ready.”

Love, Simon, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.