Entertainment

This 'Love, Simon' Trailer Will Probably Make You Cry

by Emily Mae Czachor
20th Century FOX

Everyone deserves a great love story. Right? At least, that's the duly all-inclusive tagline at the forefront of the just-released trailer for Love, Simon, a decidedly rare coming-of-age dramedy about the tongue-tied, fumbling woes of teen romance, coming out, and dating in the age of the internet.

Directed by Greg Berlanti and adapted from YA novelist Becky Albertalli's 2015 book, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the upcoming film (slated for a much-anticipated March 2018 release) centers on 16-year-old Simon: an easy-on-the-eyes, semi-awkward high school student with a, well, complicated personal life.

"My name's Simon," the trailer's narration kicks off, "and I'm just like you."

Oof. Barely 20 seconds into Simon's big-screen debut, and he's already got a pretty sturdy grasp on our heartstrings. Why? Because, for viewers out there who are just like Simon, the film heralds a shift in "visibility" standards: Finally, a movie about a gay teenager that seems as if it won't levy unnecessary focus on the character's sexuality (and when it does, the tenor reads "charming" more than anything else) and plot of which isn't wildly bleak. (Honestly, think about it: Moonlight, Blue Is the Warmest Color; the list goes on). Instead, Simon is spotlighted as a young, vibrant (but still pretty run-of-the-mill, which, on television, is often synonymous with "relatable") teenager who just so happens to be gay.

But, as is the case with the vast majority of the world's overzealous, hormone-infused teens, Simon's story is certainly not without its fair share of tribulations.

Simon knows he's gay. He also knows that he's fallen head-over-heels, googly-eyed kinds of in love with one of his peers. The only problem? Well, it's sort of a multi-tiered issue: First, Simon has kept a tight-lip on the subject of his sexuality to both his family and friends; and, second, the boy he's gone all heart-eye-emoji for is actually an anonymous classmate who he's been chatting with online. Ah, millennials.

Still, the the film insists, Simon deserves a great love story. That doesn't seem like such an illogical perspective to get behind but, for all the real-life Simons out there longing for a quippy, light-hearted mainstream film about stumbling through high school romance as a gay teenager, it could be a really big deal.

The tear-jerker of a trailer, which 20th Century FOX dropped into cyberspace Tuesday, Nov. 28, has already left a stark impression which is mostly to say, it has essentially prompted the internet to lose its collective mind.

More specifically, the Love, Simon, trailer ignited a bout of enthusiastic gratitude on Twitter. And also crying literally everybody is crying.

Excited, thankful social media users from all corners of the world wide web shared their excitement and adoration via a series of part-emphatic, part-flustered Tweets. Their exclamations bear the same kind of blustery, stream-of-consciousness gusto of a young love-struck brain gone haywire or, alternatively, of a young queer person seeing their story told on the big screen for the first time.

The most hardcore Love, Simon fans even altered their Twitter handles to fit the format of the film's title, almost like some kind of virtual solidarity celebration.

Fans also seemed to get a major kick out of Love, Simon's clever take on "coming out" namely, that it flips the script and asks, "How come straight people don't have to do it?"

But it seems like the kids out there who have been obsessively clicking "replay" on the Love, Simon trailer are mostly crying gentle tears of relief. (Can you sob gentle tears?) This is the mushy, John Hughes-inspired teen rom-com they've been waiting for.

Love, Simon won't roll into theaters until March 16, 2018. But, hey, a great love story's got to be worth the wait.