The Half of It

I'm in tears. I went into this movie expecting a lesbian love story after seeing the trailer. One might even say, the romances in the story were the least important. This is a love story, no doubt, but not what you would expect. It is a beautiful story about an unexpected friendship.

What I think the movie did especially well was that there was a really limited number of main characters and they had really put effort into creating the personalities for these characters. Usually characters like Aster (the beautiful love interest) are really vain and the viewer rarely gets to no them. The premise is also amazing in its simplicity - a senior year of high school in a small town.

Moreover, acting, directing, sound music was amazing. There is really nothing I would change. I kept trying to guess the plot subconsiously, but I never guessed right. I think the story wrapped up beautifully, maybe not in the traditional sense of happy ending but in its own way.

The Half of It is solid. Yeah, it's not perfect but it takes a trope that has become repetitive over the years and puts its own spin on it. I'm talking about that trope where a person who's probably popular likes someone, but has nothing in common with them or is just plain dumb, and so they have to ask the less popular character for help... and the plot usually progresses in the same way too; the love interest realizes that the popular character is not who they have been falling for all along and then chooses the less popular one in the end. It's pretty basic stuff that has been seen over and over and over again. And movies have tried to take a spin on it before; Sierra Burgess Is A Loser being one of the latests examples. But while Sierra Burgess failed, The Half of It succeeds at making that spin compelling, insightful and just straight up wholesome. Honestly it's a very difficult trope to fix, especially with the changing times, a lot of people are sick of the manipulation that can take place in these types of stories, not to mention the lying and scheming. And what I think The Half of It gets right is the understanding that what can make or break this trope are the characters, their dynamics and their motivations. And oh my goodness the two main characters in this movie are a delight. Yeah they make mistakes, but it's usually never out of a place of malice or selfishness. And I believe that the development of their friendship is what makes this story worth watching. This is not just a cliché teen romance. It's a movie that tries its best to capture the essence of being a teenager navigating friendship, love and life in general; and honestly, I think it does a pretty good job at it.

There are lots of things to like in this riff on Cyrano de Bergerac.

Often, it is the new material, the things that differentiate it from Cyrano's plot line, that I found the most interesting. Such as Paul's doubts about his ability to love someone in an intelligent way. Christian, in Rostand's masterpiece, recognizes that he can't speak intelligently to women, but he never doubts his mind or the value of his love for Roxane. Paul in one moving scene doubts the validity of his romantic feelings for Aster because he thinks he's too dumb to really love well. That's a very sad moment, and something no man or woman should ever feel.

The same-sex themes that run through this movie are, in principle, not in Rostand's original, but they're certainly not foreign to it either. When Cyrano first proposes to Christian that they work together to win Roxane's love, it's hard not to suspect that Cyrano also has some sort of interest in Christian as well, though he may be unaware of it.

The performances of the three main roles here are good. I found Daniel Diemer particularly good as the Christian whose mind has not been developed, but who does indeed develop some in the course of the movie. His role could have been a two-dimensional caricature like the fireman Christian in the movie *Roxane*, but Diemer - and Alice Wu's script - make it more nuanced than that. Leah Lewis is also very good as the female Cyrano who, unlike the male original, comes to a realization of her feelings for the Roxane only once she starts to help Paul/Christian express his.

There are definitely weak parts to this movie. Trig's character is over-the-top stereotype/caricature,as are most of the rest of the townfolk. His more or less equivalent in the play, de Guiche, is more interesting for being more complex. Similarly, the way Ellie wins over her sadly xenophobic classmates with an unexceptional performance of an unexceptional song is too fast and complete to be convincing. The turnarounds at the end of the movie, especially Paul's with regard to his own homophobia, also happen too fast and too neatly. They could have been motivated earlier in the movie had they been thought out more. While the script, pace some of the previous reviewers, is generally very intelligent, it is lacking in that respect. It takes too long to work things out, and then the resolution of the conflicts happens too quickly.

It might also have helped if we had seen why Aster allowed herself to be claimed by Trig. That didn't seem convincing to me either.

Still, for only the second movie by the writer-director, Alice Wu, she got a lot right, and sometimes very impressively so.

This is definitely a movie to be watched at home, in my opinion. I can't see most audiences sitting through it in a theater. But watched at home, with perhaps one break to get a snack, it is an interesting and original riff on Rostand's great masterpiece.

Not every gay person has to go through the "self-identification"stage, and I was impressed that the film didn't exaggerate at this point. Because this is just a story about...love...

Shy, straight-A student Ellie (Leah Lewis - Nancy Drew) is hired by sweet but inarticulate jock Paul (Daniel Diemer - Sacred Lies), who needs help winning over a popular girl. But their new and unlikely friendship gets complicated when Ellie discovers she has feelings for the same girl. You'd probably think, "oh, so this is another Netflix high school romcom, but they have a little gay love triangle".. Guess again!

The Half of It opens with an animated sequence, while Ellie tells us about longing for the other half of our soul-unity. This is all based on the beliefs of ancient Greece, but those guys obviously never went to high school. Ellie was born in China, but moved to remote, backwater town Squahamish (or as Ellie's English teacher likes to call it - "Hell-quamish"), where she's busy making some much-needed extra cash penning homework papers for her fellow high school students. Goofy jock Paul is so desperate to woo the undeniably beautiful Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire - The Art of Murder). The only problem is, he has no idea how to do so and Ellie reluctantly agrees to help him write love letters. Oh btw, this isn't a love story.

Through the use of social media notifications popping unannounced on screen, we get to understand the importance of literature in any way or form. This also becomes clear in the way director/writer Alice Wu incorporates legendary writer's quotes as title cards throughout the film. Oscar Wilde and Santre's life lessons are necessary elements in Ellie's coming of age story, which she also uses to connect with Aster. Not only through the means of repressed British literature and abstract art does she find a comfortable voice, but it also makes for some compellingly awkward situations in which she's basically an ear piece telling Paul when to make a move.

Wu really crafts a beautiful piece of visualised poetry with her newest film. Making a romantic film set at a high school, can easily become something sappy or overly cliché, but the director of Saving Face knows how to balance it all and keep it as raw as possible. Without ever pointing a finger at anyone's background or beliefs, she dares to open up the conversation on religion and existentialism.

Casting talent can make or break your film, and that's just why The Half of It works so well. Lewis carries this film with natural ease. Her voice is so important, since she basically narrates the entire story, but it's the emotion that comes with it that truly lifts up her own physical performance which has been presented very basic in contrast to the classic beauty of Lemire's character, Aster. Lemire doesn't really get a lot to do until about a quarter into the film, but then gets her own moments to shine and delve deeper in what at first seems like a picture perfect world. Male lead Paul, played by Daniel Diemer, looks the part, but because he's not your typical jock - dumb, self-centred, bully - he gets to grow as a character and show a vulnerable side you don't easily get to witness in this sort of protagonist. A talented and promising young cast is an understatement.

The Half of It deserves to be up there with indie coming of age films, such as 'The Edge of Seventeen' and 'Lady Bird'. Not only is Asian representation a necessity, the unforced LGBTQ+ story in the middle of it all is invigorating and from the heart. Like the movie states at the start, this was never supposed to be a love story - it's about friendships and new beginnings. What is love anyway?