I can’t imagine any out gay watching Love, Simon and not wishing he could have seen it when he was struggling to come out — or even sooner, to make it less of a struggle.

Love, Simon isn’t so much a love story as a looking-for-love story, or maybe a looking-for-permission-to-love story. Its most obvious audience should be gay high-schoolers who don’t know how to tell their parents and parents who suspect their teenagers are gay but don’t know how to ask. (If they go to the same show both problems may be resolved.)

But the enthusiastic response of a diverse preview crowd suggests a lot of crossover ahead. The woke generation is more likely than their ancestors to appreciate a love story regardless of the race, gender or species (The Shape of Water) of those involved — unless they just don’t care about love.

Despite a superficial similarity to Call Me by Your Name, in that they’re both about 17-year-old boys coming of age and coming out as gay, Love, Simon is more relatable for taking place in the here and now instead of an exotic locale three-plus decades ago. Simon (Nick Robinson) is a high school senior with supportive parents (Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Garner), a tolerable sister (Talitha Bateman) who watches too many cooking shows, and three besties, two of whom he’s been friends with since kindergarten.  But none of them know he’s gay.

Simon begins exchanging anonymous emails with “Blue,” a classmate who has come out on the school blogsite, and falls in love with him without knowing who he is. Thus begins a whodunit? — or who’s-gonna-do-it? — as Simon fantasizes about who Blue might be. There’s one open gay in the class: Ethan (Clark Moore). He’s too effeminate to hide it, so he’s in your face with it and uses his sharp tongue to defend himself against those who would bully him.

It’s no wonder there are gay boys in the school, when their big musical this year is Cabaret. Simon’s in the chorus but the Master of Ceremonies is played by a straight guy, Martin (Logan Miller).  He discovers Simon’s secret through a shared computer and blackmails him into trying to help his hopeless efforts to win a girl. This causes Simon to betray his friends in order to protect his secret.  

If you know your history, it recalls the McCarthy era of the 1950s when gays were drummed out of the government because they were susceptible to blackmail. It also makes Simon less sympathetic for a time — though we understand why he does what he does, we can’t condone it.

Based on Becky Albertalli’s novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Love, Simon was directed by Greg Berlanti. He’s best known for producing a gazillion TV series and writing for some of them. This is only the third feature he’s directed, following 2000’s  gay romcom The Broken Hearts Club. and Green Lantern. Love, Simon doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulty of coming out, but it makes it fun — too much fun in the case of Tony Hale’s ridiculous vice principal – and should make the process a lot easier for next year’s class.

— Steve Warren