The only drawback for me is a big confrontation scene in a church where Wu’s balancing act of keeping this all together almost collapses. Lemire comes out of this as clearly an actress headed for a huge career, a real presence on screen to be watched. Chu is just a splendid, often deadpan force at the film’s center, matched by the lovable innocent lughead of Diemer.
Each of these kids is a delightfully etched individual in a movie that promises right from the start not to expect what maybe you were expecting when you tuned in. Suffice to say it isn’t at all predictable, and that’s much of the fun. ‘The Half Of It’ Trailer: Alice Wu’s Coming-Of-Age Netflix Dramedy Delivers A Different Kind Of Love Story
This is a thoroughly contemporary and humane take on matters of the heart, splendidly spelled out by its promising filmmaker. If you think this quadrangle is going to end up where most romantic comedies go, think again. With the family strapped for money, she agrees to ghost write for Paul, but where this goes is a surprise she - and we - never expected. She seems to spend most nights sitting next to her still-grieving father as he learns English by watching old classic movies like Casablanca and Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. She came from China at a very young age with her dad (Collin Chou) and now-deceased mother, working in the booth guiding the two daily trains that come through the small town where they live. As she does agree to do just one, it becomes a much more complex assignment than she ever dreamed as the notes become very personal and it is clear that we don’t even know the half of it when it comes to the romantic longings of Ellie. Paul hires Ellie, known for writing classmates’ English papers for a price, to write love letters (or texts in this new age) to win over Aster. She’s also gotten the eye of the comically conceited Trig (Wolfgang Novogratz), whose main crush is on himself. Except for Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer), a lunky and somewhat clueless but good-hearted football player who has a serious thing for hot new girl Aster (Alexxis Lemire) but doesn’t know the first thing about appealing to her because she actually has a love of books and other intellectual pursuits that are completely foreign to him. Ellie Chu (Lewis) is a smarter-than-average student, a band nerd who seems invisible to the boys in her school.