You complete me

This type of Cyrano scheme never goes wrong. (Unmarked Spoilers)

Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis) is a high school senior who, for a price, writes her classmates papers as part of what seems to be an open secret. One day, Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer) approaches her with a request that’s a little different. He wants her to write a love letter to the girl he has a crush on, Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire). Ellie agrees because she needs the money, but complications occur because Ellie also likes Aster.

I must say, watching a queer movie that has a person of color as its lead is refreshing, which ties back to that whole there being enough white pride thing I mentioned back in my Happiest Season review. Another refreshing thing is how this movie isn’t about coming out. That does happen, but it’s not the focal point of the film. I also like how Ellie’s ethnicity makes her an outsider for legitimate reasons. After so many movies where a high schooler is an outsider because they wear glasses (NSFW) or have a slightly nerdy hobby.

It eventually dawned on me that I probably shouldn’t be reviewing a movie about love. I don’t fully understand how modern courtship works. My own love life has been less than stellar for reasons I don’t want to go over here, so all my references for how to woo someone come from romantic comedies. The problem is that things like You have made me realize that the whole dogged nice guy trope is disturbing and criminal at worst, pathetic and d***hey at best. For instance, take Paul towards the end.

Paul is depicted as being a good guy for most of the movie. What he lacks in brains, he makes up for in heart. Except, right as it seems that he’s solidified a relationship with Aster, he kisses Ellie when he thinks Ellie gave him the signal. Given that Paul’s whole attraction to Aster was shown to be rather superficial, I suppose that’s unsurprising, but that doesn’t make it any less uncool. And the worst part is that Paul never gets called out for doing that, despite deserving it as much as he deserves getting called out for lying.

Then again, Aster kisses Paul twice despite going out with Twig Carson (Wolfgang Novogratz), which she never gets called out on either. They never actually say that Twig and Aster are exclusive, but Twig talking about getting ready to propose kind of implies they are. Then again, Twig is the type of d**k who would assume he and a girl are more serious than they really are. Let’s just call this whole point a wash.

If you want to watch a movie to finish out Pride month, then I recommend watching The Half of It. It’s a cute movie that manages to be funny, touching, and most of all, sincere. That is, of course, if you have a Netflix streaming account. If you do not and lack someone to share their password with you, I recommend checking out Pariah, another coming-of-age tale concerning a LGBTQ+ youth.