Genre Research: The Half of It

 

I think when talking about LGBTQ+ movies and straying away from the typical depictions of queer people in media, this movie is a prime example. It's not one of my favorites as the storyline doesn't center itself around romance, but it's a visually stunning movie with an amazing message attached to it. 

Starts with animation and poetry for a minute and a half. 

Two shot tilt down, mid shot, extreme close up, long shot, double exposure close up with kinetic quality, close up tilt up, extreme close up, extreme close up tracking, extreme close up tracking, extreme close up, extreme close up, close up, extreme close up track down to tracking shot in the mirror, mid shot tracking to establishing shot, long shot tracking x2, mid shot tracking (but straight in front of her biking). 

Break down of the world building in The Half of It

This movie sets itself up as a typical coming-of-age high school movie, but has a female chinese immigrant as the lead (who ends up being lesbian), which makes it not as typical as previously thought.

The beginning sequence of this film perfectly sets the mood for the entire film, which is that this is an artsy, visually appealing film with a deep message. This is shown by the poetry spoken in the animation part at the beginning and the aesthetically pleasing shots in the latter half. It still does have comedic aspects, like the break from animation to reality was a tilt down to two teenagers making out, then suddenly breaking apart, going straight to their phones.

The building of this movie is really around self discovery, which the way this is presented, especially as a queer high school movie isn't normal but in my opinion was good representation. It ends with neither of them even getting the girl, which furthers this movie's objective as simply being a self discovery movie.

I love the aesthetic shots in this movie and the way the title card for this movie is presented has to be one of my favorite shots visually. The movie does focus on being more artsy than give us character dialogue and details within the first few minutes, but it does give us insight that Ellie Chu is not popular at her school, probably nerdy, most likely cares for herself at home, and doesn't have that much money. While the way they present these things about her isn't the style I would personally visualize for my own film, it's still shots I can aesthetically take notes from as almost every shot has a kinetic quality to it, which keeps the viewer's attention.