It was ok, and it was unusual. My review is positive, after all: it’s rather slow and a little bit boring at times, but it leaves you well, and when you’ll think back on it some day it will give you a sense of ‘yeah, that was life, and growing up, and finding something important to keep always inside you’.
I say, I’m glad I watched it. This is not so much about the love story, they just move around it. Yes, it is a kind of Cyrano story, and yet the love story is just a part of it, a moment in their lives, but what’s really important here is the friendship that grows between Ellie and Paul, but most of all how it is to find someone who understands you and who seems to speak to your soul, like Ellie and Aster. I really liked that none of them formed a couple, and also that there was no clearly bad guy in here: the worst thing someone did was to mock Ellie’s name because she’s Chinese, her name is Ellie Chu and a guy yelled “chugga chugga chu chu” everytime he saw her. Childish and very annoying because it refers to her being the only Chinese girl around there, but not something that breaks bones or leaves emotional scars.
The reason I liked that there were no couples at the end is because it would have changed it, that would have become the whole point, with one of them ‘winning’ and the other ‘losing’, which would have been wrong. This way it was a moment in their lives that meant something for all three of them.
Story in details:
Ellie came to America when she was a child, five I think, and came to Squahamish because her father was an engineer and he found work minding a train station, but he never got a real hang on the English language, so this and the fact that his engineering credentials were all Chinese kept him from ever getting a better jo, meaning an engineering job, and he stayed a railroad signalman.
It’s just the two of them because her mom died when she was like 13, and she makes some money doing homework for the other kids in her school.
Paul approaches her for help in writing a love letter. Not homework, he says he doesn’t want to cheat, but he’s looking for some nice words to finish the letter he wants to give Aster, a pretty girl in their school.
Fact is, Ellie likes her too. Paul’s attempt at the letter wasn’t really good, and Ellie needs money for the bills, so she accepts.
She uses words from a Wim Wenders movie, and Aster likes it too and writes back. This starts something.
Ellie writes to her about books and life, and Aster replies. When Paul texts her, he sends a short, childish message made of emoji, so Ellie writes again from some app on her phone, and they keep doing it, even when Paul and Aster meet in person.
Aster was looking for a friend, something different and meaningful, but when Paul says he wants more they hold hands and kiss.
Always running after Ellie’s bike has improved his physical condition, and he becomes famous at his school because he scored a touch down in a football match ‘putting their school on a board’ : it had been years since they last scored a point.
Spending so much time together they become friends, even if they don’t say it out loud: she rites letters to food critics for him and his taco sausage idea, he helps her buy clothes for the school show and helps her perform her song; the school claps for her, and now they see her differently.
This causes Paul to look at her differently as well, and one night he tries to kiss her, and Aster sees them. It’s only now that Paul understands that Ellie likes Aster too.
Aster spent a day with Ellie before this, talking and hanging out, and it appears that Aster doesn’t have a clear idea of what she wants/can do. She says she heard her dad talking to her boyfriend Trig about their wedding before telling her, and that she might accept… no particular emotion one way or the other, it just seems and feels like what she has to do.
When it happens and she accepts, Ellie yells No, and then both she and Paul talk in front of everyone in the church about pretending and lying and stuff, Ellie asks her if this is the boldest move she can make, and the whole thing is finally clear to Aster. That all the written words had come from Ellie.
She’s hurt of course, she’s been deceived, but not too much and when they next talk Aster speaks of art school :-) They were all thinking about their future and what to do, and she loved art.
Ellie wanted to go to school too, and I really loved the scene of her dad making dumplings, a lot, he’s usually rather apathetic, but now he cooked a lot, for the journey to the university in another state, because “we didn’t come here so you could be like me, we came here so you could be like your mother” :-) lovely.
She leaves for college and Paul is there to greet her and run after the train, making her smile and cry :-)
Lovely.
Leah Lewis is Ellie Chu
ITA L’altra metà
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