be yourself

The Half of It

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Ellie felt like an outsider. As a minority and pagan in a small town, her Ph.D. father doesn't speak English and can only practice by studying movies shown on TV; she is plain-looking and can easily hide in the crowd; Inevitably, she managed to fall into the minority stereotype; at school, she spent half of her time avoiding bullying and racism, and the other half to earn extra money by writing essays for her classmates.

Life is going to continue like this, and the dreams and hopes in my heart are suppressed under the dim sky of the town - until a boy asks her for help, hoping that she can help him write a letter to the school flower. Unexpectedly, it was written, this Straight-A girl, found that she was not so straight.

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warmth

A restrained nerd who makes money by ghostwriting essays; a silly football backup winger who has poor writing skills and even needs someone else to write a love letter, two people who never had the chance to be friends and meet because of a girl - Paul needs someone to come Help him write a love letter to his sweetheart, and Ellie needs that $50 fee to pay the electricity bill.

Warmth is the theme of the movie. It doesn't bluntly lay too much malice, and even the supposedly conservative small-town world is narrow and expansive enough to make a blunt rugby backup wing mingle with a closeted lesbian.

Probably because the youth dramas all over the world love to add pen and ink to love too much, as if youth only has restless hormones and pulsating pulse, and we love this drama so much - "Not every love story is very romantic, love, no Find your perfect half, but try, achieve and fail."

Between Paul and Ellie, how to describe them? Discordant, incongruous, or weird? A boy who runs a sausage shop at home and a girl who is addicted to books. However, their friendship is so real and unpretentious that it stands out more than the film's romance.

Just as we often wonder why we fall in love with someone who is not like us, we also choose friends who are very different from us. Maybe it's just because we like the same records, movies, novels, empathize with something, maybe it's the guitar Paul handed Ellie's piano when her piano broke and said to her, "Sing your song. "When Ellie thinks chasing the train is stupid, Paul still chases, chasing the train he can't catch; as Aster finally finds himself finding a like-minded person; as Ellie writes for Paul's food dream, bravely stands out Challenge Aster's engagement. The three achieve each other and take a small step in life.

Everything that is slightly abrupt can be perfectly explained in the context of youth. Friendships, especially those of adolescence, are warm, mysterious, and unknowing. Not knowing it's hard to come by, not knowing that it's entangled in ties that go beyond all external representations: race, gender, or sexual orientation.

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"The good thing about being different is that no one expects you to be like them."

be yourself

Just watch a few American teen movies and you will find that this movie is very different from the traditional American teen movies. There aren't as many school dances, rave parties, Paul and Ellie's meetings are in churches, and even the ingrained pyramidal chain of discrimination in American movies is hard to find. Squahamish, with a few strokes, outlines a place more conservative and closed than Sacramento in Miss Bird.

"It's just another place where the adults don't need to tell their children to not expect too much from life — they already know."

Writing in the Hollywood Reporter, Inkoo Kang: This is one place where adults don't need to tell their kids not to expect too much from life - they already know it.

Everyone seems to be stuck and struggling. For the scholarship, even though the teacher is willing to help, Ellie still has too many scruples and can't leave the town to go to school in a bigger world. She can only watch her dream go out little by little like a candle that gradually lacks oxygen under the glass cover. In the process of getting along constantly, Ellie gradually realizes that she is different, and even her incompatibility may be a blessing.

"I've never thought about the pain of fitting into a group, and the good thing about being different is that no one expects you to be like them."

Just as Aster grudgingly accepts the scarf she doesn't want to wear, she suffers from being a pretty girl in a small town like this - gregarious. Forced to accept a superficial but family-friendly boyfriend, a mean and unwilling friend, a strict religious father, and a life framed. Confined by family traditions, Paul had to put his dream of opening his own sausage shop on hold.

Everyone's loneliness, troubles, and pain are so trivial, no friends turn against each other, and the loss of a loved one is so severe that it is not even worth mentioning. It's like being trapped in an iron cage, occasionally being illuminated by the setting sun, but finally knowing that the light cannot be left behind. In the process of watching it, it gave people a slow, heart-wrenching feeling, as if a severe high fever had developed, and it could only be recovered by lying on the bed little by little .

Over the years, we've gotten used to seeing Cinderella episodes. The radiant face after changing the shape can change the calm life like stagnant water. After making a popular boyfriend, he transformed from a school nerd to a man of the year. It's too simple, too easy, too unreal, and so deeply desired by us. After all, life is so bitter, why should you be frustrated in movies?

If you expect the same plot in this movie, you will be disappointed. The reality always laughs at our superficial fantasies, intentionally or not. Whether it's Ellie, Paul or Aster, although they all took a brave step, it doesn't seem to be the transformation that can get us what we want.

Perhaps the most daring stroke is yet to be drawn.

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Why do we love watching youth movies so much? Maybe it's because odd kids, no matter how rebellious, are eager to find solace in a movie that reflects their real-life troubles.

Rare Asian LGBT themes, rare Asian faces that are not so European and American, I prefer the original name of this show—the half of it, I really don’t understand it. Just watched the full movie on Netflix, and I thought, Netflix's performance in youth dramas has been good and bad, but this movie is enough to be called a victory.

Since the success of "Love, Simon" at the box office, youth movies have become more and more daring to try different LGBT themes. However, over the years, youth movies have been trying to be innovative, diverse, open, and over and over again, trying to maintain their shrinking market share, but not every film is called a masterpiece. hit. What Director Wu did was to create new ideas in a script that could have fallen into the rut.

The whole movie was shot very restrained. The director seems to deliberately use a lot of psychological descriptions and still write letters to communicate in 2020. The interspersed trains and bicycles slow down the already sticky atmosphere, and try to avoid childish farces and blunt bloody plots. Instead, it's romantic and platonic, subtly conveying the elusive uncertainty of adolescence—the sudden discovery of one's own lingering same-sex feelings and coping with sudden friendships.

The director saves most of the writing on the triangle, and the performance of the three actors makes a perfect trio for the whole movie, especially Lewis. Leah Lewis was brought back to Orlando from Shanghai when she was six months old by a Florida couple, and her real estate agent's parents later adopted her sister Lydia from the same orphanage. She has loved performing since she was a child, and refuses to play her role as a stereotyped nerd. She is gentle and firm, playing her own melody. Through her restrained personality and hoarse voice, she can feel the hidden power and finally inspire She went to the university of her choice.

What is also novel is that the director shows us another possibility of friendship under the framework of LGBT themes. LGBT roles are no longer limited to gay honey beside the heroine in traditional high school dramas or act as comedy elements. As far as I am concerned, the film None of the portrayal of love in the book is as engaging or sincere as the friendship between Ellie and Paul. Perhaps, the future of LGBT cinema will not be so smooth, but the brave step taken by "The Half Of It" must have its meaning.

Public number: Edge Cooper

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