Review: The Half of It

The Half of It is not your average coming-of-age movie. Directed by Alice Wu, it’s heartbreaking and heartwarming, goofy and dramatic, but most of all, it’s real, a story about teenagers actually feels like it was written for them as well. The authenticity comes from the film’s willingness to tackle complex and difficult themes, themes that are rarely explored in coming-of-age stories with the same nuance that Wu manages. 

The Half of It follows Ellie Chu, a queer Chinese-American high school student in Squahamish, a town that could feasibly be just about any small mid-Western American town. Ellie’s life is simple: she runs a small business writing papers for her fellow classmates, helps her dad at the train station he works at, and practices her guitar. She’s quiet and introverted, preferring to stay inside and write or watch old black-and-white movies with her dad rather than hang out with her fellow students, who spend most of their time bullying her anyway — she appears to be the only Chinese-American student at the school. But her day job — and, ultimately, life — takes an unexpected turn when Paul Munsky, a football player with a heart of gold, asks Ellie to write a love letter to his crush, Aster Flores. 

Little does Paul know that Ellie is harboring a crush on Aster as well. 

Thus begins the series of misadventures in which Ellie, under the guise of being Paul, crafts letters and texts and paintings to share with the gorgeous and popular Aster. But the focus for the better part of the film isn’t actually Aster herself, nor is it Ellie and Paul’s pining for her. Rather, the focus is on Ellie and Paul’s burgeoning friendship, as two people from vastly disparate worlds come together regardless. The two could not be more different, where Paul thrives Ellie flounders, and vice versa. But throughout the course of the film, Ellie emerges from her shell (with encouragement from Paul) and viewers watch the two of them become friends. 

There may be a love triangle, but it’s not the point of the movie. Fundamentally, The Half of It is about the bonds between friends, and the strength friendship has to overcome prejudice in even the smallest, most conservative towns. Watching Paul and Ellie grow close and learn to support each other in their passions and interests is truly the heart and soul of the film, and the romance becomes background noise (though, admittedly, very cute background noise) in each character’s story. 

Wu never wanted the film to be about “who gets the girl,” as she said in an interview with Perri Nemiroff for The Collider. Instead, she wanted it to be about the characters, wanted those characters to pursue their own truths. There is no grand romantic finale, but the victories are there regardless — subtle, but clear. Aster escapes her conservative father’s expectations for her by applying to art school. Paul gets the chance to cook and expand his family’s restaurant that he loves so dearly. Ellie leaves Squahamish to attend school at Grinnell College in Iowa. It’s bittersweet endings for all the characters as we see them leave each other, but Wu reminds us that this isn’t the end of their stories. Rather, it’s the beginning. There is no happy-ever-after, because that’s unrealistic for a group of teenagers with their entire lives ahead of them. 

That being said, we do at least get one epic kiss in one of the final scenes. 

The film, at parts, does fall victim to a trope that many other coming-of-age movies have: in an effort to sound profound, moments that could be touching just end up coming off as pretentious or stilted. But it feels almost purposeful, because by the end, the facades are dropped, and the characters sound like what they are: teenagers. And the best parts of the movie only come when this occurs. When Paul introduces Ellie’s father to taco sausage, or when Ellie looks out the window of her college-bound train to see Paul running alongside — these are the moments that make the heart constrict. 

At the beginning of the film, Ellie tells the viewers that this is not a love story, but I would disagree. Yes, it’s not a traditional romance, but it’s a love story nonetheless, about the love that good friends share, the love between father and daughter. The Half of It shows us that there are many different kinds of love, no one more important than the other. There is romance in the film, but it’s a subplot, a note at the end of the love that gave the story heart. Friendship, Wu says, can be a beautiful love story as well. We all know it, but with the overwhelming cultural surplus of romance, it’s about time a movie reminded us anyway.