“The Half Of It” Trailer: Alice Wu is Back With the Lesbian Teen Romcom of Your Dreams

Alice Wu’s Saving Face is one of the best lesbian romcoms of all time. Sorry, excuse me – Alice Wu’s Saving Face is one of the best movies of all time PERIOD.

It’s hard to explain why Saving Face is so special, which is why I usually just insist that people watch it. The last week alone I’ve convinced two people to watch it and both of them responded with something like: HOW HAD I NOT HEARD OF THIS MOVIE BEFORE??

One reason Saving Face is special is for many years it was Alice Wu’s only film. But now – almost 16 years after it first premiered at TIFF – that’s about to change. Alice Wu’s The Half Of It is coming to Netflix on May 1st.

AND OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITED.

The trailer dropped today and you really must watch it. Leah Lewis stars as Ellie Chu, a shy, introverted, Chinese-American, straight-A student who accidentally falls for the girl she’s helping a school jock woo. Yes, this is a coming-of-age lesbian teen romcom, and, yes, I did cry tears of joy in the first minute of the trailer.

When Wu was trying to make Saving Face, studios tried to convince her to make it straight and white. Then just white. Then just a little white. Wu refused and refused and refused maintaining the integrity and specificity of her script. Maybe that’s why it’s taken so long for Wu to make another movie. She’s willing to wait to make movies the way she wants to make them with the types of characters she wants to see on-screen.

And now here we are just a few weeks away from a new Alice Wu movie!! I’m obviously very excited and, hey, I think you should be too. Watch the trailer below!

The Half Of It arrives on Netflix on May 1st.

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Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 516 articles for us.

20 Comments

  2. I am so freaking excited about this movie because a) Saving Face is a perfect movie and b) Cyrano-ish retellings are my favorite things. This is a dream movie and I didn’t think I could be more excited to see it but then I listened to the Queery Podcast and Alice Wu’s conversation on it was brilliant and interesting and made me even more excited for the movie. AND THEN! This trailer came out and forget it, I am just going to count the days until May 1st when I can watch this.

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  9. I’m so excited for this movie and the trailer is awesome. However from what I’ve heard on twitter, from people who’ve read the script, it’s not actually a “romcom”; it’s more like a coming-of-age story with a lesbian protagonist. So I’m not expecting the girls to end up together, but I’ll very much enjoy the story anyways because… Alice Wu.

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    • Yeah for sure. I guess I feel like something still falls in the genre even if it’s unconventional and playing with the genre? I love romances that are non-romances! I love movies where people don’t end up together but in a smart way!

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      • Ohhh yeah, same! Like how bring it on and mean girls might fall under that. I just feel like usually when people hear the words gay and romcom together they expect to see two girls that end up together. And if it doesn’t end that way, it might lead to people calling this “queerbait” (or whatever term they decide to mistakenly use). And I’d hate to see that :(

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  11. So glad to see that Alice Wu is back! It’s an absolute shame that bigoted industry biases prevented her from building momentum after Saving Face, the finest romcom ever made.

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  12. I’ve spent all evening trying to find something I actually want to watch and failing, then I see that trailer, and my heart feels all big and excited again. :-D

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  16. Is it bad I want the girl to get the girl? And also because Saving Face was the queer movie I needed in my life at the time to see a functional lesbian couple actually get together and stay together. And no one dies.

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