The romantic comedy was never really supposed to be original. The genre has a few simple narrative templates, many of them several centuries old. Cinematically talking, art and magic are found, instead, in elements like atmosphere, style, wit, or chemistry. And, of course, the honesty with which a film examines that central force of all human existence desire.
The artist Alice Wu’s The Half of It is a fine example of all this. It is a yet different riff on Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, one of the most overused comic-romantic prototypes of all time, but it is so tender and transporting, its characters so attractive, that you can not help but want to give the movie and everyone in it a big hug.
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There is a reason why the central dynamic of Edmond Rostand’s play proceeds to find its way into romantic comedies so many years later, its descriptions of inner beauty, insecurity, and well-intentioned deception proving dramatically irresistible. Even Netflix has skirted near similar territory before in 2018’s catfish comedy Sierra Burgess is a Sufferer.
The Half of It feels a little bit, well, mechanic, it is a difficult growth not to engage with, particularly as writer-director as the artist Alice Wu works difficult to advance, avoiding the far-fetched farce and convoluted circumstances we might be demanding given the material. There is an enchantment to overload teen emotions with too much additional plot but Alice Wu’s movie is mercifully streamlined as she avoids the connecting in, says, a mean girl opponent or any unnecessary familial subplots, concentrating on the triangle and little else.