Home MoviesThe Half of It

The Half of It

Name: The Half of It
Genre: Comedy, Coming of Age
Released: 2020
Duration: 104 min

2020Comedy · Coming of Age104 min

4/5

A teen romance brave enough not to end in the couple you expect.

Cyrano de Bergerac, rewritten so the letter-writer is a queer Chinese-American girl.

Our take

Ellie writes essays for cash in a small town, gets hired by a sweet, inarticulate jock to write love letters to a girl, and falls for the girl herself. Alice Wu builds it around three-way friendship rather than a love triangle, which is the smartest decision in the film.

It is also unusually good on being the only Asian family in a white town and on a father who has given up on his own life. The ending refuses the pairing the genre demands and is much better for it — Ellie gets to leave, and that is the win.

Where to watch The Half of It

Streaming availability data provided by JustWatch. Availability changes often and is checked daily — confirm on the provider before paying for anything.

Region

Stream

Netflix
Netflix Standard with Ads

All watch options for The Half of It

Streaming availability data provided by JustWatch.

Scores

Ours

Jibbi Score — 4 out of 5 rainbows. A teen romance brave enough not to end in the couple you expect.

Also recorded

Rotten Tomatoes — 97%, as recorded on Wikidata — Rotten Tomatoes has no public API, so this is the openly licensed figure rather than a live reading.
TMDB — 7.1 out of 10 from 1,627 votes, refreshed daily.

Rate The Half of It

Reader ratings are separate from the Jibbi Score and never change it. One rating per person; the average appears publicly once 5 people have voted.

No reader ratings yet — be the first.

The plot, officially

Shy, straight-A student Ellie is hired by sweet but inarticulate jock Paul, who needs help wooing the most popular girl in school. But their new and unlikely friendship gets tricky when Ellie discovers she has feelings for the same girl.

Synopsis and poster via TMDB.