The Half of It | Film Review

Hey Guys x

I briefly heard about this film before it came out, but I didn't research it or watch the trailer or anything, so I kind of went in blind. But I do remember being excited to see what all the fuss was about - the reviews have been great!

Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis) is a straight-A student who spends her free time writing essays for other students. But her tasks change when jock Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer) asks her to write a letter to the girl he loves, Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire). But as Ellie begins writing the letters, she discovers that Paul isn't the only person in love with Aster.

I don't know what it is about this film, but it just didn't grip me the way I wanted it to. I liked it, but I didn't love it.

For a start, it follows the generic formula of usual Y/A Netflix movies that we have come to love, but with an LGBT twist. However, this film isn't about Ellie figuring out her sexuality, but rather about her relationships with Paul and Aster, and I really liked this. Of course I love the LGBT stories that are about figuring yourself out (and I'll pretty much take any LGBT story as it comes because we don't get enough of them), but it was nice that this was the way it was. It focused on Ellie as a person, rather than the gender of the person she liked.

I felt like it got into the main plot a bit too quickly - we barely have time to learn any of the characters names before we are thrust into the main crux of the story. I would have liked to have gotten to know these characters a bit more - particularly Aster Flores, who was a mystery to me at first.

And then from here, I found that I felt rushed through the story, but at the same time that things were moving really slowly. It's hard to explain, but I guess I wanted the plot to speed up, but the characters and the dialogue to slow down, if that makes sense.
This is particularly true for the middle of the film, where it feels like nothing is happening at all, at some points.

All of these characters are high school children dealing with their own stuff in the midst of this story. But I felt like they were all a bit bland. The love triangle quickly became the most interesting thing about these characters, and without it, they were kind of dull. At a push, Ellie is the only one who could really stand without it.
There was also little-to-no character development for any of the characters apart from Ellie. To me, they felt like they were exactly the same people at the beginning as they were at the end, and I would have liked to see them change a bit more.

There is a scene that is set up as the emotional turning point of the film, and it's a point where some extremely poignant and important speeches are made. And while I liked the scene, I also felt like it fell a bit flat. It didn't pack the punch that I wanted it to, and it didn't make me feel any particular way about either the characters, or the film.

Having said that, at the very end of the film (the train scene), I got glimmering moments of what the poignant speech scene was supposed to be, and I actually did find myself feeling a bit emotional. I couldn't deny that I had been on a journey with these characters. And in a way, it felt like this end point was what everything had been building towards - and maybe some of the other moments in the movie didn't matter as much, because everyone got to where they were supposed to be.

Overall, I liked the film, but I didn't love it. And based on what everyone else is saying about it, I was a bit disappointed with the end result.

5.5/10

Lou - https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/