Title: The Half of It
Writer/Director: Alice Wu
Distributor: Netflix
Production Company: Likely Story
Release Date: May 1, 2020
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, LGBTQIA+
Format: Feature Film
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 1 hr, 43 mins
Reading Level/Interest Level: N/A
Awards or Honors:
Tribeca Film Festival: Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, Alice Wu (2020)
ReFrame Stamp Award: Top 100 Most Popular Narrative & Animated Feature (2021)
Gold List Award Winner: Best Actress, Leah Lewis (2021)
Plot Summary
Ellie Chu, a Chinese-American teen living in Squahamish, Washington, is the reason her English class gets a passing grade: to make money, she writes essays for her classmates for a fee. Without any friends, Ellie spends most of her time on her side hustle and taking care of her widower father, including helping him with his signalman duties at the train station outside their apartment. When classmate Paul Munsky, a jock who doesn’t talk much, approaches Ellie and asks her to write a love letter for him to his crush, she initially refuses. But upon discovering she needs the extra funds to avoid her family’s electricity being turned off next month, she agrees to help Paul.
Ellie corresponds with Paul's crush, Aster, through hand-written love letters and texts. When Aster agrees to go on a date with Paul that he absolutely bombs, he convinces Ellie to teach him how to bond with Aster over art and literature. As Ellie and Paul’s friendship develops, they realize they have much more in common than their shared mission: in addition to both wanting more out of their futures than staying close to their families in Squahamish, they both have feelings for Aster. Paul and Ellie become deeper embroiled in their scheme to deceive Aster and must test the bonds of their friendship and relationships as they come to realize they can’t keep this up forever, and Aster deserves the truth.
Director Background
Alice Wu has made her emergence back into Hollywood with The Half of It after an almost 16-year break following the release of her first feature film, Saving Face (2004). Previous to the debut of her first film, she attended MIT and Stanford to achieve degrees in Computer Science and eventually worked for Microsoft. Wu is of Chinese-American descent, as are both of the main characters in her two films, and noted that she often imbues her writing with aspects from her own life (Escobar, 2020).
Critical Evaluation
After watching the trailer for this movie, I was absolutely hooked and knew I had to watch it. I love a story about friendship and this movie certainly delivered on that front. Ellie was a great character, so down-to-earth and full of quirks and hilarious quips. The development of Ellie and Paul’s friendship is definitely the best part of the movie and I loved getting to know them as characters. There were lots of little details that made this movie come to life and portrayed this small town where there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot going on. Ellie pedaling her bike to and from school was absolutely tragic but iconic: the struggle is real for this poor girl who is doing her best.
In the movie, Ellie and Aster are the only people of color in their small town, and Alice Wu (writer/director) notes in an interview with NPR that she wanted to portray the experiences of these two young women in a majority white town that doesn’t necessarily threaten them but makes them feel like outsiders to some extent (Escobar, 2020). Wu’s intention was to draw in people who live or grew up in a similar town and by making them love her characters, “make them think a little bit more about that one immigrant family in town” (Escobar, 2020). I think this will really resonate with teens from both sides of the experience and hopefully help them understand each other better.
While I would say that I loved this movie, in terms of critique, my main issue was with the character of Aster. I felt like she was a fairly flat character and was more like a tool for the plot than anything, which does showcase the friendship between Ellie and Paul, but I found myself continuously annoyed with her character. I felt like the movie ended in kind of a strange place, with a big miscommunication that gets resolved in a dramatic, public way. The romance plays a big role at the end of the movie that didn’t really have much of a place previously, and although we do get closure with Ellie and Paul’s friendship, I wanted that to take more of a center stage than it did. There was also this very random sequence at the beginning of the film about Plato and finding your other half, which I did like at the time, but it never came full circle and I felt like that could have tied into the ending somehow.
Creative Use for a Library Program
Recreate Ellie and Paul’s ping-pong matches with a ping-pong social at the library or local community center.
Speed-Round Book Talk
In an LGBTQ+ retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac with a modern influence, meet Ellie Chu, a teen from a small town who is doing her best to get by. When classmate Paul convinces Ellie to write love letters on his behalf, she becomes mixed up in a love triangle with herself playing a major role. Will friendship win out in the end, or will the farce go too far, leaving Ellie and Paul with a mess they can’t clean up?
Potential Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation
While the ALA does not track movie challenges and since this film is streaming, it would not be part of a physical library collection, I can speculate that there might be the potential for challenges based on some mild profanity and depictions of alcohol consumption by teens. In defense, these moments are very brief and realistically, I don’t imagine them being problematic for teens. As a movie rated PG-13, I would say that it is certainly appropriate for that age range, given the rating.
Reason for Inclusion
The themes of friendship, love, and honesty are huge in this movie and I think reflect a lot of real-life situations. Though the plot is a bit unrealistic, the portrayal of friendship and love is so genuine that I think teens will love this movie as much as I did.
References
Correa, B. (n.d.). The half of it [Image]. Pinterest. Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/350928995975882090/
Escobar, N. (2020, May 1). What Alice Wu wants to say in ‘the half of it.’ NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/05/01/848853718/what-alice-wu-wants-to-say-in-the-half-of-it
Houseofwolvcs. (2020, May 3). The half of it (this movie!!!) [Image]. Tumblr. Retrieved from https://houseofwolvcs.tumblr.com/post/617096447352045568/the-half-of-it-this-movie
IMDB. (n.d.). Alice Wu biography [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1226108/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
IMDB. (2020). The half of it [Poster Image]. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9683478/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Netflix. (2020, April 9). The half of it official trailer [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-yhF7IScUE
Yue, I. [@ilyues]. (2020, April 30). Hello are you:
a) an asian girl, b) a wlw, c) just someone who likes cute hs romances, or d) //multiple of the above [Image]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/B_oXQHqlGgI/
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