Only half the story
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Only half the story |
| Original title | The Half of It |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English , Mandarin , French |
| Publishing year | 2020 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alice Wu |
| script | Alice Wu |
| music | Anton Sanko |
| camera | Greta Zozula |
| cut | Lee Percy , Ian Blume |
| occupation | |
| |
Only Half the Story (original title The Half of It ) is a romantic comedy film by Alice Wu , which was made available to participants of the Tribeca Film Festival for the first time online from April 15, 2020 and was included in the Netflix program on May 1, 2020 . The coming-of-age film tells a story based on Cyrano de Bergerac .
action
Ellie Chu is the only Chinese teen in the small Christian and conservative town of Squahamish, and the only other Chinese is her father Edwin. Since her mother's death, he has retired to her house to watch reruns of old films.
Ellie feels like an outsider, the local children mock her, and her classmates often tease her. However, her classmates like to use her services when it comes to getting her to write good essays. The 17-year-old high school student Ellie does this for a fee and increases the family income.
One day her classmate Paul Munsky approaches her with a request to help her write a love letter. Even if Ellie is taken with the addressee herself, a friendship develops between her and Paul. It had never occurred to her that there might be people who want to be her friends. From then on Ellie wrote flowery love letters for Paul to the pretty Aster Flores, who only understood half of the contents.
production
Alice Wu directed and wrote the script.
The English original title The Half Of It refers to the concept of soul mates. This platonic myth, as represented in the film in the animated opening sequence by stick figures that can be seen on flying scraps of paper that are divided into two halves and tragically separated, is based on its symposium . Plato describes in it that every person was once part of a whole soul, which has been separated into two parts and which are therefore fatefully connected and seek their whole life for one another. Plato describes this connection as kinship and in his Dialog Symposion lets the comedy poet Aristophanes tell the myth of the spherical people , in which the extreme strength of their bonds is attributed to the previously existing unity.
Filming took place in New York from April to May 2019. Greta Zozula acted as camerawoman .
The film should celebrate its world premiere as part of the Tribeca Film Festival in mid-April 2020 . One month before the start of the festival, it was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic and postponed indefinitely. Nevertheless, selected films were made available online from April 15 to 26, 2020, the festival's original time slot. On May 1, 2020, the film was included in the Netflix program.
reception
Reviews
The film has so far won over 96 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics and received an average rating of 7.9 out of a possible 10 points.
Hoai-Tran Bui from SlashFilm writes that even if Alice Wu's teenage rom -com comes along like a modern version of the story about Cyrano de Bergerac , The Half Of It is a sweet LGBT Q variant of this, and turns into a buddy comedy at some point , in which Ellie, as in Pygmalion, tries to make Paul the intellectual she invented in her letters. The film is not interested in the romance between its characters, but rather shows the viewer how they are stuck in the dingy working-class city, which The Half Of It is less a rom-com than a coming-of-age story Let as Ellie, Paul, and even Aster try to break out of the roles that have been set for them.
Awards
- Received the Founders Award in the US Narrative Competition (Alice Wu)
synchronization
The German synchronization was based on a dialogue book by Ralf Pel and the dialogue direction by Torsten Sense on behalf of RRP Media UG, Berlin.
| actor | Voice actor | role |
|---|---|---|
| Leah Lewis | Anna Gamburg | Ellie Chu |
| Alexxis Lemire | Anne Patricia Reetz | Aster Flores |
| Daniel Diemer | Lucas alarm clock | Paul Munsky |
| Becky Ann Baker | Judith Steinhäuser | Mrs. Geselschap |
| Collin Chou | David Bunners | Edwin Chu |
| Wolfgang Novogratz | Marcel Mann | Trig Carson |
| Gabrielle Samels | Millie Forsberg | Amber |
| Catherine Curtin | Velia Krause | Colleen Munsky |
Web links
- Only half the story in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Only half the story in the German dubbing file
- The Half of It in the program of the Tribeca Film Festival (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Hoai-Tran Bui: 'The Half of It' Review: There's More Than Meets the Eye With This Charming Teen LGBTQ Riff on 'Cyrano'. In: slashfilm.com, May 1, 2020.
- ↑ Inkoo Kang: 'The Half of It': Film Review. In: The Hollywood Reporter, April 30, 2020.
- ↑ Steve Pond: 'The Half of It' Film Review: 'Cyrano de Bergerac' Gets a Gay High School Spin. In: thewrap.com, May 1, 2020.
- ↑ Only half the story. In: Filmdienst. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
- ↑ The Half Of It. In: tribecafilm.com. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
- ^ Rebecca Rubin: Hugh Jackman, Pete Davidson Movies to Screen at Tribeca Film Festival. In: Variety, March 3, 2020.
- ↑ Marc Malkin: Tribeca Film Festival Postponed Due to Coronavirus. In: Variety, March 12, 2020.
- ^ Hilary Lewis and Trilby Beresford: Tribeca Film Festival to Debut Online Programming as Films Are Judged Remotely. In: The Hollywood Reporter, April 3, 2020.
- ↑ The Half of It. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
- ↑ Amanda N'Duka: Tribeca Film Festival: Netflix's 'The Half of It', 'The Hater', 'Socks On Fire' Among Award Winners For Postponed 2020 Edition. In: deadline.com, April 29, 2020.
- ↑ The Winners Are In. In: tribecafilm.com, April 29, 2020. (Video)