The Half of It

The Half of It is a 2020 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Alice Wu. It stars Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer, and Alexxis Lemire, with Enrique Murciano, Wolfgang Novogratz, Catherine Curtin, Becky Ann Baker, and Collin Chou in supporting roles. It is loosely inspired by Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac, and follows a Chinese-American student helping the school jock woo a girl whom, secretly, they both desire.

The film was released worldwide on Netflix on May 1, 2020. It received positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised Wu's direction and screenplay, as well as the performances of Lewis and Diemer. It was honored with the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature at the 19th Tribeca Film Festival, while Wu was nominated for Best Screenplay at the 36th Independent Spirit Awards.

Plot
Ellie Chu lives in the remote town of Squahamish with her grieving widower father, where she performs most of his station master and signalman duties. She makes extra money by ghostwriting essays for her classmates' assignments. The socially ostracized Ellie is secretly interested in Aster Flores, who happens to be reluctantly dating Trig, a narcissistic and popular boy from a wealthy family.

Ellie's next-door neighbor Paul Munsky, an inarticulate American footballer and future heir of a family sausage business, requests that Ellie help him ghostwrite a love letter to Aster. Ellie eventually agrees to help her household pay off its bills. Under the identity of Paul, Ellie begins a heartfelt correspondence with Aster about their shared interests in art and literature through letters and text messages.

Ellie's English teacher encourages her to apply to Grinnell College after noticing the proficiency of the essays she had ghostwritten for her classmates, but Ellie plans to attend the University of Washington and stay in Squahamish to remain with her father.

Ellie sets up Paul on a date with Aster, but his obtuse conversational skills hamper his interactions. Ellie planned to give up on helping Paul until he helps defend Ellie from bullies. Ellie starts teaching Paul about art and literature for him to keep up with his fake persona.

Ellie observes from afar that Paul's second date with Aster starts off as badly as the first. In a desperate bid to save the evening, Ellie sends Aster text messages via the user account secretly shared by the phones of both Ellie and Paul while Paul plays along by pretending to type on his phone. Paul on the following day divulges to Ellie that he had kissed Aster - without genuine approval or input from Aster, and even despite telling Aster to keep their relationship platonic - unnerving Ellie.

Paul thwarts bullies' attempts to sabotage Ellie's music recital. Later, Paul stumbles upon letters from Ellie imploring renowned food critics to comment on Paul's original culinary innovations, and is filled with gratitude.

Aster takes Ellie to a secluded hot spring where they share an intimate conversation. Ellie discusses her own atheism, while Aster reveals that Trig intends to marry her. After Aster takes Ellie back to the latter's home, Aster stumbles upon Paul and verifies that he believes in God. From her bedroom window Ellie watches Paul and Aster kiss, upon which she decides to admit into Grinnell College.

During Paul's football match, Aster cheers for Paul, but Paul is more thrilled by Ellie's cheers. Afterwards, mistakenly perceiving them to have developed feelings for each other, Paul attempts to kiss Ellie, but she rejects his advances. They notice an upset Aster observing them. Paul deciphers from Ellie's reaction that Ellie loves Aster. Due to his religious upbringing, he warns Ellie that she is in sin and will go to hell. Later, when Paul delivers his sausages to Ellie's father, they have a conversation about the meaning of love. Paul comes to terms with Ellie's sexuality and chooses to love her as she is.

Witnessed by congregants from across the entire town, Trig proposes to Aster at church, only to be interjected by Ellie and then Paul, who lectures the congregants on love and authenticity. Aster recognizes Ellie's words written from a previous letter and realizes that it had been Ellie all along who had written the letters and text messages as Paul; she slaps Paul and storms out.

Before leaving for Grinnell College, Ellie apologizes to Aster for deceiving her. Aster admits that she had had feelings for Ellie and that she is applying to Grinnell's art school. Kissing Aster, Ellie tells her that she will see her in a couple of years.

Paul, who is now confident about his career prospects, sees Ellie off at the train platform, promising to continue visiting her father. As per Ek Villain, a film they had previously watched together, Paul runs alongside Ellie's moving train, provoking Ellie's laughter along with tears.

Cast

 * Leah Lewis as Ellie Chu, a shy, introverted, Chinese-American straight-A student
 * Daniel Diemer as Paul Munsky, a school jock whom Ellie helps out by writing love letters
 * Alexxis Lemire as Aster Flores, the daughter of a local deacon
 * Collin Chou as Edwin Chu, Ellie's father
 * Wolfgang Novogratz as Trig Carson, Aster's boyfriend
 * Becky Ann Baker as Mrs. Geselschap
 * Catherine Curtin as Colleen Munsky, Paul's mother
 * Enrique Murciano as Deacon Flores, Aster's father

Production
Alice Wu started writing The Half of It in the aftermath of the 2016 United States presidential election. The screenplay drew inspiration from the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. In April 2019, it was announced that Leah Lewis, Alexxis Lemire, Daniel Diemer, Becky Ann Baker, Catherine Curtin, Wolfgang Novogratz, and Enrique Murciano joined the cast of the film, with Wu directing and Netflix distributing. Anthony Bregman of Likely Story, M. Blair Breard, and Wu served as producers, and Likely Story's Erica Matlin and Greg Zuk executive produced. In June 2019, it was announced that Collin Chou had joined the cast.

The film's name alludes to love as discussed in Plato's Symposium - which was cited in the opening sequence and structured various visual motifs.

Filming
Principal photography began on April 22, 2019, in New York, and concluded on May 31, 2019.

Release
It was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2020. However, the festival was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was released on May 1, 2020.

Wu did a test screening in a small conservative suburb to know how those morally aligned against the movie would feel about it. She was surprised that "[p]eople marked the film as ‘excellent’ and they said they're politically conservative". She gleaned that "there are a lot of closeted people who are actually starting to change their mind", and that Netflix could better reach them - even though a theatrical release would "be better for you as a filmmaker in terms of cachet". When probed by a Netflix executive on her intentions for writing the film, she realized that "people are not going to go to the theater to watch this movie but in the privacy of their own home".

Critical response
Decider said the plot is "an unbearably cute premise—a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac with a queer twist—that seems so perfect and so obvious, it’s a wonder the movie hasn’t been made yet", and "an adorable teen film that will no doubt service an extremely underserved audience." Rolling Stone praised the direction, stating that "the gentle touch Wu uses as a filmmaker, which only occasionally drifts into tidiness, does not dull the edges of her quietly revolutionary achievement in telling the story of a young lesbian immigrant’s journey to self-acceptance. In a movie brimming over with the pleasures of the unexpected, that’s the best part." The New York Times noted that "Wu suffuses the film with a painfully mature understanding of the ache of longing for the impossible."

Bitch magazine wrote that "while these teenage-focused [...] movies flirt with the idea of lesbian relationships, they quickly pivot before their casual interest can evolve into any fully realized romance", with the film's story seeming "to be more about the halfway happiness Ellie's given: maybe some acceptance, maybe a friend, maybe a first love. It's not the happy story we were sold via the trailer, and it feels like more promises that only halfway delivered."

Leah Lewis told Teen Vogue in an interview on 1 May 2020 that: "Most people think a love story has an equation, and that's usually boy meets girl, girl meets boy, or girl meets girl." However, in this case "[i]t's a self-love story because these characters don't really end up with each other, but at the very end, they end up with something . For me, that's even more valuable than just finding your other half; it's finding a part of yourself along the way. It is a love story, it's just not a 'romance' story."

In a post dated May 22, 2020, A.O. Scott recommended it as his top film of 2020 so far. Similarly, Educating Georgia's film expert Steph called it their film of 2020 in their retrospective of the year.

Christy Lemire on RogerEbert.com found the film's "languid" pacing to be a double-edged sword.

Accolades
The Half of It won the top prize, the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature, at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. The film was nominated for Best Screenplay (for Wu) at the 36th Independent Spirit Awards, and for Outstanding Film – Limited Release at the 32nd GLAAD Media Awards.