Movie Review

The Half of It turns Cyrano on its head in delightful high school remake

There are certain stories that are so classic that they can be changed into many different forms. Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac has inspired numerous films in the past 123 years. That includes at least 10 straight-up adaptations, as well as movies like Roxanne and Megamind, which used the framework of the story to tell their own unique tales.

The latest to give its own twist to the Cyrano story is Netflix’s The Half of It. Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis) is a brainy and shy high school senior who makes money on the side by writing papers for her fellow students. When her classmate Paul (Daniel Diemer) asks for help in composing letters to his crush, Aster (Alexxis Lemire), Ellie is put in the unfortunate position of writing love notes to a girl for whom she also has feelings.

Writer/director Alice Wu goes for the gusto in changing up the Cyrano story. She not only sets the story in modern times and gender-switches the protagonist, but she also has Ellie be gay and the only Chinese student at her small-town high school, adding multiple difficult layers for her to navigate.

The pleasant surprise is that for a film set in high school, it deals in a relatively high degree of intelligence. Wu never downplays Ellie’s intellect, having her reference philosopher Albert Camus, author Kazuo Ishiguro, and classic movies in her writings. But she balances it out with a fair number of high school stereotypes, providing an easy entrance for viewers who may not be familiar with those figures.

The film is primarily about the love triangle of Ellie, Paul, and Aster, but Wu smartly explores how, especially in hormonal teenagers, feelings can be extremely fluid. Aster is in a relationship with a narcissistic jock, who believes everyone loves him, including Ellie. Meanwhile, Ellie reluctantly helps Paul, but the more they work together, the more each starts to like the other in ways that are confusing for both of them. And Aster has to reconcile the bumbling demeanor of Paul in person with the eloquent letters and message she gets from “him.”

Wu mixes in elements of Ellie’s Chinese heritage, giving her extended moments with her widowed father, watching movies and cooking in their cramped kitchen. She also shows but never overplays the casual racism that Ellie encounters, such as when certain students shout “Chugga-chugga-Chu-Chu!” at her.

Lewis plays her role almost perfectly, making her buttoned-down and bookish but with a quiet confidence when the time calls for it. Diemer makes for a great foil, with his Cro-Magnon look and dumb but earnest delivery. The character of Aster could be just the ideal dream girl with no depth, but Wu gives her plenty of background and Lemire knows exactly how to play every moment she’s given.

The Half of It has a lot going on, but it manages to keep all of it flowing in a coherent and fun manner. With a fantastic concept, it features more than a few surprises along the way, easily elevating it way above your typical high school movie.

Leah Lewis in The Half of It.

Leah Lewis in The Half of It

Photo by KC Bailey

Leah Lewis in The Half of It.

Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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