Review: The Half of It
Certain genres of films have a classic way of telling their story. For example, in adolescent romance films, we see the classic: guy wants a girl, guy is too shy and not popular enough for her, but she ends up falling in love with him and leaves her much more popular boyfriend. The Half of It has these same tropes, but Alice Wu brings her own twist to the genre. Increased representation has blown a breath of fresh air through films in the last decade. This is not to say that films have increasingly become more creative, but the mere change of writing films that are more inclusive has been a refreshing delight to the film industry.
The Netflix original, The Half of It, written and directed by Alice Wu, is a coming of age film about high school student, Ellie Chu (played by Leah Lewis), who makes money by writing papers for other students in her class. Her and her father are Chinese immigrants who moved to a small town in Washington, the fictional town of Squahamish, in hopes of her father getting a well-paying job in engineering. However, even with his PhD in the field, he doesn’t speak English well enough for the positions he is qualified for. Ellie is a quiet girl and only known by other students as the Chinese girl who writes their papers, but one day, she is asked by shy football player, Paul Munsky (played by Daniel Diemer), to write a letter for him to send a girl, Aster Flores (played by Alexxis Lemire), letting her know his feelings for her. Ellie is hesitant at first, but she does so anyway. However, through writing letters to Aster on behalf of Paul, Ellie begins to have her own feelings for Aster as she gets to know her. On top of that, while working and learning more about each other, Paul begins to have feelings for Ellie.
It’s a love-triangle, as seen in many films alike to it. Where this film becomes a breath of fresh air in its genre, is the fact that we see a love-triangle where there’s only one possible relationship. Ellie has an interest in Aster, but Aster does not have those sorts of feelings for Ellie. Paul has an interest in Ellie, but she has no interest for him in that way.
Another element of the film that makes this love-triangle even more interesting is the fact that they all live in this small, rural, very religious, town. Ellie doesn’t even feel comfortable enough to be honest about her feelings for Aster, and it’s not all because she’s shy, but because Aster is so heavily involved in the church. There’s a moment when Aster asks Ellie if she’s religious at all, and Ellie tells her she’s not. When she asks Paul the same thing, Paul doesn’t hesitate to say “of course”. Ellie’s interest in Aster in this film can be seen as somewhat of a “forbidden love”. In other romantic films where forbidden love is usually between rival families, Ellie’s love for Aster is forbidden by the staunch religious society she lives in.
Alice Wu stays true to some of the pillars of the coming of age film, though, with the way she portrays the other students. The rest of the school is all the same and what you would expect from a rural town. There’s a clique of girls who dress and act the same and they follow around the rich, most popular boy in school, Trig (Wolfgang Novogratz), who just so happens to be dating Aster because she’s the prettiest girl in school. There’s no problem with Wu following these conventions, the only issue is that Trig and those girls are extremely one-dimensional. Their only function is to show the stark contrast between them and Aster, Paul, and especially Ellie.
Combining those elements of the small, rural town and looking at the other students allowed Alice Wu to drive home the most relatable theme of the film, one which is commonly found in many coming of age films. Ellie has only lived in Squahamish. She and her family immigrated to Washington when she was only five years old. Her hope is to leave the small town and go to college out of the state. On the other hand, is Paul. Paul only knows Squahamish, being born and raised there. He tells Ellie he would leave but knows leaving would disappoint his mother because he’d be unable to fulfill the family’s wish of passing down the family-owned sausage business to him.
The Half of It does a marvelous job of taking a common story and making it more accessible and inclusive for all viewers. It’s not a groundbreaking movie nor would I consider it to be spectacular, but it joins the inclusive innovation of storytelling within the genre. It’s a feel good, quirky film and Alice Wu does an excellent job to show that these stories and adolescent struggles can be portrayed by anyone. No matter sexual orientation or race.
