‘The Half Of It’ Is Your Latest Quirky Teen Romance Coming to Netflix May 1

After To All The Boys I’ve Loved, here’s another teen romance with an Asian American girl in the lead. Except, The Half Of It’s Ellie Chu is gay, has a beautiful husky voice, and used to being bullied at school. Directed by Alice Wu, The Half Of It is airing on Netflix May 1.

Watch the trailer here:

We can’t help but go gaga over the geeky simpleton Ellie Chu (played by a wonderful Leah Lewis) as she first realizes she likes a girl at school. It all begins with a boy, though.

Paul Munsky, played by Daniel Diemer, first approaches Ellie to ghostwrite his love letter to Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire). However, Ellie ends up falling for Aster as she traverses Paul’s feelings for the letter. And going by Netflix’s tags for the film, it is a heartfelt, quirky, feel-good dramedy!

Other names in the cast include Collin Chou, Catherine Curtin, Enrique Muciliano, Becky Ann Baker, among others.

Story behind the story

Netflix has definitely upped its game in the teen romance genre after what seemed like a bulk order of your regular white and straight love stories.

However, of late, we are seeing more and more colored or LGBT teens leading the way. I Am Not Okay With This is another great production.

However, for Alice Wu, the journey to bring a gay Asian American girl at the center of a TV show was a long, long one.

Based on her own experiences as a gay teen growing up in America, Wu first introduced Ellie Chu to the production houses back in the early 2000s. She was then asked to make it all more white and less gay.

Accolades

A teenage spin on Cyrano de Bergerac, Alice Wu’s The Half of It won the top award from the Tribeca Film Festival this week.

Organizers announced winners Wednesday for the festival, which had been set to take place from April 15 through April 26 in New York City. The coronavirus pandemic forced the festival to reschedule. Still, jury members were able to view the films electronically and vote on winners.

Shira Haas, of the series Unorthodox, picked up the best actress for the Israeli mother-daughter drama.