The Half of It

The Half of It is a modern, queer, retelling of the play Cyrano de Bergerac. It’s 90% gently delightful and 10% annoying.

Shy, smart hard-work Ellie Chu (how many racial stereotypes can you throw at the poor girl) has a crush on smart, popular, pretty girl, Aster. Ellie writes homework for a big chunk of the tiny senior class in Hicksville, I mean Squahamish, for cash. So when, equally stereotype-laden, inarticulate jock Paul approaches her to write a love letter it’s not entirely unreasonable. She actually challenges him about who writes love letters these days, and he says it sounds romantic. Eventually Ellie agrees and writes the letter. Of course it’s to Aster.

What follows is a mostly charming gentle romance. Paul pushes for a faster pace but Ellie, mostly successfully, keeps things slow. Aster has no idea what’s really going on is, in some ways, the subject of a pair of voyeurs as Ellie and Paul spy on her to try and find out about her to include things in their letters. Of course it’s mostly Ellie doing the spying, Paul is just along as the driver. Just in case you’ve missed the point.

There are a batch of charming, and some beautifully awkward, scenes as Paul and Ellie get to know each other; both because they’re hanging out and because she tries to coach him on how to chat to Aster. Who would have thought that chat up lines work to get to know the other person? Aster comes to visit Ellie and they spend the day together as well. There is a lovely extended scene where Ellie and Aster communicate through a mural, until the guy that owns the wall paints over it.

All of this is fun. It’s enhanced by the moments when Paul and Ellie muse on the nature of love. Paul’s thoughts are more than a little banal, Ellie’s thoughts are suitably deeper. I’m not sure I agree with any of the ideas advanced but a few made me stop and think, which I really didn’t expect given the rest of the film.

What annoyed me? Well if you haven’t got the hint from what I’ve written already, Paul falls for Ellie and tries to kiss her. Aster catches them… Ultimately this forces the revelation that Ellie was writing the letters and so on, but gah. The whole scene is super-clearly telegraphed from a mile out and super lazy. So annoying. Particularly because in many ways, Paul is actually quite a nice character and I’d have liked to have liked him throughout.

This is miles away from being a challenging film but if you want a nice gentle love story that defies the normal rom com stereotypes this is well worth 90 minutes of your time.

Bechdel Test: Pass. That scene where Aster and Ellie spend the day together is not the only scene that passes, there are others and some are downright hilarious. But that’s an obvious one.

Ko Test: Ellie is Chinese-American. Easy pass.

Russo Test: Ellie is really clearly interested in girls. Aster reciprocates her interest, and appears to be interested in boys. They don’t use labels, but I’d suggest lesbian and bi/pan (hard to say when they don’t use labels). Aster could be a lesbian pretending an interest in order to pass, she lives in religious, small town America after all. Either way, the film clearly passes all three steps.