By Kelly Lan, Courier Staff Writer
Warning: This post contains spoiler regarding the book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and the movie “Love, Simon”
On March 16, 2018 “Love, Simon” the movie based on the book Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli was released. But just how different is the movie from the book which it was based?
Overall, the movie was a very satisfying depiction of the book, but there was a few changes that the director chose to make.
One big thing that the movie changed was the removal of Simon’s older sister, Alice Spier. Alice Spier was not present in most of the book so it’s understandable why the director chose to remove her from the movie version. However, her sisterly advice to Simon will be missed.
With the removal of Alice Spier, there was the addition of the vice principal. Who doesn’t like watching that principal that tries to be a teeanger and pretends to relate to them? The vice principal is the perfect character to be at school to make Simon’s life a little more weirder. When Simon is bullied for being gay the bullies, Simon and Ethan, the other gay student at the school are sent to the vice principal’s office. The vice principal channels Michael Scott from “The Office”, when he called Simons and Ethan boyfriends and refuses to see what he said wrong when they just happen to be two gay people.
Another character added to the cast was Lyle, a cute waiter from the waffle house that Simon, Abby, and Martin go to study their lines for the play. For a little while, Simon believed that it was Lyle who was his penpal, Blue. That was until Lyle came up to him during a football game to ask if he was dating Abby.
One of the biggests changes in the plotline was that Martin declared his love for Abby during the football game. In what must be the cringiest declaration of love, Martin, who dresses as the school mascot, interrupts the national anthem, takes off his mascot head, and declares his love for Abby in front of the entire school. Abby rejected him and he became a school meme. In the movie, that was the reason why Martin told everyone at school that Simon was gay, because he wanted the school to stop talking about him. In the book, however, Martin outs Simon after he realizes that he was getting nowhere with Abby and he was angry.
Another change in plotline was that Bram did not know who Simon was until Martin outed him on the school’s tumblr. In the book, they started making lists about what they believed was true about each other in order to try to guess who the other person was. The exchange of the lists was adorable and was really missed in the move. In the book Bram figures out who Simon is before Simon is outed because apparently Simon writes the way he talks.
Other small changes that happened in the movie was that Nora was a baker not a guitar player. In the book, Nora sneaks off to learn how to play the guitar and she. Leah, and Taylor formed a band. Another change is that Leah has a crush on Simon not Nick. In the movie Leah has a crush on Simon to avoid the animosity between her and Nick when Nick starts dating Abby. In the movie, however, Leah feels betrayed when they start dating and she feels left out of the friend group. Lastly in the movie Simon’s email address is changed. In the movie, Simon’s email address is frommywindow1@gmail.com. In the book however, his email address is hourtohournotetonote@gmail.com. That song lyric for an email address is one of the reasons how Bram figured out who Simon was.
Despite all the changes between the book and the movie, both “Love, Simon” and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda are worth watching and reading respectively. They are one of the very rare instances where both the book and movie are equally amazing and one does not outshine the other.
