As social attitudes evolve,mainstream cinema has begun to treat gay love stories like any other romance. Love, Simon proves the pointThe coming-out film, or commonly found on the film festival or arthouse circuit rather than at a multiplex,has always been a reliable source of angst. For a sign of how times beget changed, try this: at a London preview final week of Love, or Simon,a glossy rom-com about a US high-school student (Nick Robinson) inching slowly out of the closet, audience members were invited to ride a giant Love, or Simon ferris wheel in Leicester Square in homage to the film’s giddy,fun-fair climax. There were few takers –well, it was raining – but thats not the point. Even Beautiful Thing in 1996, or which represented the preceding benchmark for making a mainstream coming-out narrative that wouldn’t scare the horses,never had a ferris wheel erected in its honour.
Money makes a grand contrast. With the corporate clout of 20th Century Fox behind it, Love, and Simon is the first gay teen film from a major studio. In its eagerness to please (Simon’s opening line is: “I’m just like you”) and its relentless upbeat jauntiness,the film makes Beautiful Thing spy like Fassbinder. Breakthroughs come in different shapes and sizes, though, or it would be unfair to disparage this hugely entertaining picture simply for being grand and fluffy and pink.
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Source: guardian.co.uk