The Half of It (2020)

This whip-smart modern Cyrano dramedy is about a brilliant Asian impoverished high school girl who sells term papers to her white classmates and is hired to write love letters from a boy to a girl and develops feelings for the girl. Director/writer Alice Wu's script is nominated for a Best Screenplay Spirit Award. Jack and I both loved it.

Leah Lewis is wonderful as the frustrated writer Ellie, Daniel Diemer sweet as the smitten boy Paul, and Alexxis Lemire delightful as Aster, the third side of the love triangle. Becky Ann Baker has a few scenes as Ellie's sympathetic teacher Mrs. Geselschap, which is the name of Wu's favorite high school teacher.

Anton Sanko's soundtrack is, for a change, available to stream by subscription on Apple Music and for free on Spotify.

Wu was told that she could not use the name of Venmo for Ellie's transactions, so she called the app Hushmo, though she found out later Venmo would have been fine with it. The movie takes place in the fictitious town of Squahamish, Washington, but was shot in upstate New York.

Sanko was last blogged for co-composing The Seagull. This is Wu's second feature after one in 2004. Lewis, Diemer, and Lamire are new to me though not to acting, but Baker is very familiar from, among others, 18 episodes of Freaks and Geeks, 20 of Girls, four of Brockmire, three of Big Little Lies, and two of Younger.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are fully behind this one, averaging 97%, while its audiences are roughly a fifth off at 81. We saw it on Netflix on April 6 as part of my personal Spirit Awards film festival. More on that later.