The Half of It
Cyrano de Bergerac, rewritten so the letter-writer is a queer Chinese-American girl.
Reviewed by The Jibbi Editors
A teen romance brave enough not to end in the couple you expect.
- 2020
- 104 min
- 97% on Rotten Tomatoes
- 6.9 on IMDb
- #comedy
- #coming-of-age
- #romance
Our take
Ellie writes essays for cash in a small town, gets hired by a sweet, inarticulate jock to write love letters to a girl, and falls for the girl herself. Alice Wu builds it around three-way friendship rather than a love triangle, which is the smartest decision in the film.
It is also unusually good on being the only Asian family in a white town and on a father who has given up on his own life. The ending refuses the pairing the genre demands and is much better for it — Ellie gets to leave, and that is the win.
Where to watch The Half of It
Stream
Netflix
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Scores
Ours
- Jibbi Score — 4 out of 5 rainbows. A teen romance brave enough not to end in the couple you expect.
Everyone else’s
- Rotten Tomatoes — 97%, via OMDb.
- IMDb — 6.9 out of 10 from 48,144 votes, via OMDb.
- Metacritic — 74 out of 100, via OMDb.
- TMDB — 7.1 out of 10 from 1,636 votes, refreshed daily.
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The plot, officially
Shy, straight-A student Ellie is hired by sweet but inarticulate jock Paul, who needs help wooing the most popular girl in school. But their new and unlikely friendship gets tricky when Ellie discovers she has feelings for the same girl.
Synopsis and poster via TMDB.