While we may be living in the Golden Age of superhero film, that’s not to say we don’t get a good number of other types of films hit the big screen as well. Ironically enough, the film in question here comes from Greg Berlanti, the mastermind behind the highly successful Arrowverse, which consists of DC shows, Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow. Berlanti also has a hand in the surprisingly strong series Black Lightning.
The film is Love, Simon, and it’s the coming-of-age story that throws in a bit of twist — the lead character is a closeted high-schooler, who goes through the everyday problems of a teen, with that added layer. While we do get those stories every so often, they’re usually pretty heavy, dark, and dreary. However, with this one, they opted to go more for the romantic comedy, except with the lead being gay.
RELATED – First Look At Love, Simon
Response to the film so far has been largely positive, and at a press conference for the film that LRM recently attended, Berlanti — an outspoken gay man — reflected on what the film’s success means to him.
“I think one of the things that’s been tremendous about it has been the uniformity of the enthusiastic response at the end of this sort of happy ending of this romantic comedy. That all walks of life, all people, and all different red states and blue states and wherever we’ve gone with the film, to see the audience reaction, particularly to the happy ending, I think has been really rewarding for me personally. Not even just as a director, but just as a gay person, to see audiences of all kinds applauding a gay kiss is really powerful, and something that I’m not sure I ever expected to see in a film like this.”
When it comes to gay stories on film, the lighthearted happy ending is often something that’s swept to the wayside in favor of something more hard-hitting and tragic. In that sense, it’s great to see this aspect of the romance genre get made for a gay love story.
Love, Simon hits wide release on March 16, 2018.