The Half of It

Showing on Netflix.

I’ve watched a couple of really dreadful comedies on Netflix recently, so what a breath of fresh air this wonderful warm hearted romantic comedy from writer director Alice Wu is.

Our story centres around three high school students in small town USA, Squahamish to be precise. Ellie, a Chinese immigrant, Paul and Aster all of whom have grown up in the town. Ellie is smart and articulate and earns extra money by writing papers for her classmates, until Paul asks her to write a love letter to the thoughtful, intelligent and attractive Aster whom he adores from afar, but it becomes complicated once Ellie realises she has feelings for her too.

The film right at the beginning promises this is “not a love story” or an odd one were nobody gets what they want. This is exactly what Alice Wu brings us, this is beautifully judged story telling about 3 people trying to discover who they are and what they want, Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer and Alexxis Lemire are all a joy to watch and the changing dynamic between the characters as they grow is seamless and keeps the story fresh and moving forward.

With a mix of Cyrano de Bergerac and many a coming of age comedy it would of been easy for this to have falling into cliche and predictability.

However, Alice Wu with a warm script and talented cast delivers a hugely enjoyable story but with enough depth and nuance to give us something that delivers more than you may expect.