Netflix teen-drama which has its merits. Directed by Alice Wu, making her first film in 13 years, this is a semi-autobiographical high school coming of age drama in a small town called Squahamish in Washington State. The plot owes a lot to Cyrano de Bergerac and other stories in which Ellie Chu, local nerd and brainbox agrees to write some love letters from the school jock Paul Munsky to the object of his desire.
This person is Aster, daughter of the local preacher and another smart girl who is basically too smart for the town. The letters lead to coaching as Ellie guides Paul in date etiquette – the blind leading the blind because Ellie herself doesn’t date. And it leads to Paul and Ellie becoming unlikely friends and Ellie falling in love with Aster and discovering that she is gay. Lesbian and Chinese in smalltown USA is a tough card and reflects Wu’s beginnings in life.
The plus points in this film are: decent acting, a good script and a natural ending. Daniel Diemer handles the role of goofy Paul well,
Leah Lewis is completely credible as Ellie and Alexxis Lemire has a future star presence as the graceful Aster. Collin Chou is effective as Ellie’s grieving father.
On the minus side, the film is a bit slow paced and could do with some serious editing in the middle. I also felt that the literary highbrow art references shared between the girls was a bit much even if they displayed how much they needed to get out of the place. Good photography from Greta Zozula.
Better than many of its genre but somewhat low-key and not quite as funny as it pretends to be.
3 stars
passionfilm 