Taking its name from a beautiful theory told by the protagonist herself, The Half Of It begins with an enticing monologue, spoken by main character Ellie, about Ancient Greek beliefs of love. Not only does the opening monologue prove her intellect by leading into a conclusive essay but it also gives the audience an insight to the weird and wonderful thought process of Ellie Chu and her personal view on love.
The film being set in a high school brings this familiar setting into an unfamiliar story. However, this film provided more relatability for me than most teen rom-coms I’ve seen. With the focus not being on a popular character, the story can draw more attention to the abuse that these ‘outcasts’ face, whether this be racial abuse, teasing or just being taken advantage of for their intelligence. The evidence of this teasing being in the first five minutes, sets the entire film up for showing the harsh monotonous life of people lower down the high school hierarchy and allows us to see, straight from the beginning, that this film is going to be so unlike any teenage love story you’ve ever seen before.
Roughly 8% of all high school students in America, or 1.3 million, report being lesbian, gay or bisexual. Not only are these statistics outdated (they’re from a survey that was conducted in June 2017) but they are also inaccurate as they fail to consider closeted teens or people who are unsure of their sexuality. Despite there being a clearly large number of students that are a part of the LGBTQ+ community, the majority of teen romance films are focused on heterosexual couples. This not only enforces heteronormativity but the lack of representation within mainstream media can also lead to LGBTQ+ teens feeling isolated, by the half of it providing, not only the most realistic narrative of teen love I have seen but also, a beautifully inclusive story, it has earned a place in my books as the best film of 2020.
In my opinion, The Half Of It is a really important film because it allows for those important conversations amongst young people about representation of queer teens in Hollywood and assisting them in feeling more comfortable. This is maybe the second film I’ve ever seen where I felt the representation of minorities was accurate. Not only did it show the questioning stage of ones sexuality but the LGBTQ+ characters weren’t played solely by white actors.
Although I love this film and think it is one of the best of it’s kind, I can see how people could see the other side and might argue that the representation is insufficient and the relationship between Ellie and Paul conforms to slightly toxic stereotypes of friendships between members of the community and allies.
In conclusion, this film is a must see and could really help society go a long way if more people understood that this is the reality.
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