The Half of It

Alice Wu started writing after the 2016 United States presidential election; this became her second feature, 16 years after Saving Face. The shape comes from Edmond Rostand’s 1897 Cyrano de Bergerac, while the title points to the missing other half in Plato’s Symposium, quoted in the opening and echoed in paired imagery. Ellie ghostwrites her classmates’ essays and covers most of her widowed father Edwin’s stationmaster and signalman duties. Squahamish is the setting and Ellie is aiming at Eastern Washington University, but the shoot was in New York State, at the Adirondack Scenic Railroad station in Thendara and the Strand Theater in Old Forge, from 22 April to 31 May 2019. Wu deliberately test-screened the film in a small conservative suburb. When viewers who called themselves politically conservative marked the film excellent, she concluded Netflix could reach people who would not buy a ticket for it. It won the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature at the 19th Tribeca festival, announced online after the in-person edition was postponed; Wu was nominated for screenplay at the 36th Independent Spirit Awards. A good fit if you want the letters to stay a question of authorship rather than a contest between two suitors. Not for anyone waiting for a couple at the close; Ellie kisses Aster and then boards the train.