Genre: Drama/ Romance/ Comedy
Runtime: 104 minutes
Year: 2020
Starring: Leah Lewis, Alexxis Lemire, Daniel Diemer, Collin Chou, Becky Ann Blaker, Wolfgang Novogratz, Enrique Murciano
Description: When smart byt cash-trapped teen Ellie Chu (Leah Ewis) agrees to write a love letter for a jock (Daniel Diemer), she doesn’t expect to become his friend or fall for his crush (Alexxis Lemire).
Review: Since her well-received debut “Saving Face” from 2004, director Alice Wu has remained fairly quiet. Now, sixteen years later, Netflix finally releases her second feature film. And with “The Half of It” she once again illuminates an Asian protagonist with lesbian feelings, but this time at a high school in the fictional town of Squahamish. Don’t let the lightness of the film distract you too much from the good message it contains.
There is a strange amount of A’s in Ellie Chu’s class. Ellie sells essays, mostly about philosophy and literature, to other students. If her teacher hadn’t enjoyed reading them so much, she would have turned in Ellie a long time ago. Just when Ellie’s financial distress is greatest, classmate Paul comes up with an assignment she would otherwise never accept: write a love letter to the most beautiful girl in the class, Aster. An additional complicating factor is that Ellie herself has had her eye on her for a long time.
It's actually a retelling of the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, but with a contemporary twist. Director Wu also shows that she is influenced by “The Remains of the Day”, by referring extensively to this story about people who can never be open about their feelings. And perhaps even more, it’s about the masks the characters put on. Ellie looks like a somewhat naïve geek, concealing her sexual preference. Aster loves literature and art, but behaves as expected of her as the most popular girl in school. And Paul, with Ellie’s help, acts a lot smarter to win Aster.
Casting is everything with these kinds of stories, and Wu has succeeded in doing just that. Leah Lewis has a look that makes it easy to underestimate her. However, her voice is the most mature in the whole movie. When she’s full of irony talking to her teacher, you’re immediately struck by the fact that these words come out of her mouth.
When the three main characters, Ellie, Paul and Aster, come together something great happens. Because of his feelings for Aster, Paul really wants to do his best to grow as a person. In addition, purely out of instinct, he becomes the friend Ellie needs to get out of her shell. And disguised as Paul, she knows how to give Aster the push not only to walk the path of least resistance. So how much the setup of this triangular relationship might have always been doomed to fail for someone, it’s kind of refreshing to get a story where not every character gets what they want. It's also nice that “The Half of It” fully recognizes the intensity of love at this young age, but doesn’t overly romanticize them.
Let’s hope Alice Wu doesn’t wait another 14 years to make a new film. “The Half of It” was worth the wait, but I hope we hear from her more often from now on.
Rating: 4 / 5
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