lockdown film no. 34 - The Half of It (2020) dir. Alice Wu
I enjoyed the stop motion bit at the beginning a Lot. It was a shame they didn’t do more with it throughout the film
- couldn’t take the first band scene seriously because when they were singing Annie’s song all I could think of was being in a football stadium in Sheffield singing the greasy chip butty song (sheff gang rise up)
- don’t know who needs to hear this but if you want a favour from someone do not pull them off a moving bike
- the scene where Ellie dropped all her stuff and aster helped was pretty basic but I did really like how Ellie stood up with the phone glued to her head
- it feels very much like a shakespearean comedy with false identities, which I’m super here for
- (just clocked its Cyrano de Bergerac. At least its better than the shit storm that was Sierra burgess)
- oh the bathroom scene. Dead. Love that. Focus pulling ? Yes please. But the girls ? Get in the bin
- the idea of revising for a date because in reality you have Nothing in common is an absolute nightmare but it’s what Paul would do because he’s like effort = love. I don’t think I agree with that. Obviously you should put effort into your relationships with people but you can’t bludgeon someone into loving you, nor can you bludgeon yourself into loving them. If a person Does Not Love You for whatever reason, it doesn’t matter how much effort you put in. And then that feeds into really toxic stuff of boys not knowing how to take it when someone doesn’t like them and how they’ll then think “I just didn’t try hard enough” and that just leads to stacks and stacks of bludgeoning which is obviously a terrible vibe
- it slightly upsets me how high they play ping pong. technique left the chat
- ellie really was not subtle when she was saying the reasons why someone might theoretically like aster. Come on pal.
- the scene where Paul made taco sausages for Ellie and her dad was so sweet the way he was standing behind them waiting for their reactions… big golden retriever energy
- “You’re not just a girl”
- “I’m not? Then what are you?”
- i was getting big carol and Therese in the tunnel vibes when they were driving to aster’s place. Having seventeen playing in the background felt, again, a bit basic
- AWW BABY ELLIE ZOOMING AROUND WHEN ASTER TOOK HER CLOTHES OFF TO GET IN THE WATER
- it was good how when aster got out of the water (presuming she was naked), we went straight in and sat very close with Ellie because aster not wearing clothes isn’t the point of any of this scene, it’s about Ellie and aster and that particular bit was about Ellie and realising the effect that aster has on her. I could waffle for ages about how wlws are conditioned to believe that loving women is predatory and how that has massively affects this scene but I feel like that’s kind of obvious
- the vending machine bit where Paul kisses Ellie was so awful on so many levels — obviously rank that he kissed her because Ellie didn’t want him to and aster saw, but one thing that really made me sad was how, when Paul said “it’s a sin. You’re going to hell” it was also really upsetting to him because Ellie is his friend and because I guess he equates being gay as someone doing something wrong — it would be as if one of my closest friends did something that didn’t line up with my idea of them, like being racist and beating someone up. that would make me sad so him finding out that Ellie isn't straight made him sad in the same way
- trig’s proposal is literally my worst nightmare. It’s manipulative for starters and I hate the idea of a public proposal, but it’s so hypocritical for him to quote a really nice verse from the bible saying love does not boast and then kind of boasting about the love that he has for aster and using such awful language like “she’ll make me a great wife” doesn’t feel like he understood that verse very well
- i just have to say that asters character did not feel developed at all. We got to the end and I didn’t feel like I was connected to her at all, I know she wasn't really one of the main characters but for the amount of time we spent with her I would have hoped she’d be a bit more rounded as a person
- it was good that Ellie and aster had a kiss, but when I first saw I really didn’t like the way it was done because it made an iffy callback to an earlier scene where paul says that he kissed aster and Ellie was confused because he couldn’t have known that aster wanted him to kiss her. But then in this scene Ellie doesn’t take into consideration what aster wants at all, so it just feels a bit jarring in Ellies character for her to do something like that
- paul running by the train was soft. I liked it
- in conclusion this film is …. fine. I was excited to watch it initially because I’d heard it was a new queer film with a main character who wasn’t white, so I was hyped. I think it is a queer film in the sense that the main character is queer, but her queerness isn’t explored as such, which I think is a shame. It’s definitely good to have platonic relationships at the centre of a story, but I was hoping they’d have more aspects of a queer storyline in this film, so I guess I’m saying it didn’t play out the way I was expecting it to. Having said that, that’s not the films fault
