Filmmaker updates a classic — ‘Cyrano.’
Bay Area director Alice Wu making her mark again with new comedy
It was a beloved South Bay English teacher who created the spark that propelled Alice Wu to ponder the the unimaginable: Becoming a writer. While attending Los Altos High School, Wu — who was born in San Jose the daughter of Chinese immigrants — never thought about screenwriting as a career path. She was far too practical, and sought the fast track to a more lucrative future in the tech world. But Mrs. Geselschap saw a different side to Wu, who was a voracious reader. When she learned her former student was headed to Stanford to study computer science, her reaction was, as Wu recalls, “‘Well that’s a shame. I always hoped you would major in English.’ ” The words from Mrs. Geselschap, who died in 2006, apparently stuck. Now Wu is a San Francisco-based filmmaker and screenwriter, and her latest film pays tribute to her former teacher. The film is “The Half of It,” a high school romance-dramedy that loosely adapts the “Cyrano de Bergerac” story, and it includes a sassy teacher named … Mrs. Geselschap. “The Half of It” is streaming. Last week, it was awarded the best U.S. narrative feature at the juried Tribeca Film Festival in New York. On May 20, Wu will be honored as part of CAAMFest, San Francisco’s influential Asian American film festival that has moved its programming online because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“She changed my life,” Wu says of Geselschap. “She was the first person who truly seemed to believe that I could actually write. In elementary school, I was somehow getting the message that I was not good, probably because I couldn’t speak English that well.
I always assumed that English was a massive struggle for me.”
School was a lonely experience for Wu, mirroring the experience of “Half of It” protagonist Ellie Chu (played by Leah Lewis), who agrees to become the poetic mouthpiece to help a goofy high school jock (Daniel Diemer) woo the girl of his dreams (Alexxis Lemire). Of course, things get complicated.
“The Half of It” explores such weighty issues as sexuality, bullying and racism, but does so delicately and honestly. That gentle touch is key to Wu’s intent on any writing project: to create likable, nuanced characters who confront life’s challenges in authentic ways. Originally,
“The Half of It” was going to focus on “the nature of love through the lens of the lesbian/straight guy friendship,” Wu says. She moved away from that, thinking that a TV series would do that subject more justice than a 100-minute movie. “At some point I said,
‘I’ll set this in high school because in high school every emotion is so intense and huge,’ ” she said. It’s also one of the few times in life when someone has to coexist with people outside of their inner circle.
Wu also wanted to place Ellie in a somewhat politically conservative landscape, which is why she set the film in eastern Washington, rather than her native Silicon Valley. She, too, was raised in a conservative household with strict rules that often clashed with Bay Area values of the 1980s. And like her film protagonist, she felt the sting of racism growing up (the nickname Ellie gets tagged with by schoolmates, “Chugga Chugga Chu Chu,” is nearly identical to what kids called Wu in school). As Wu sees it, we all have prejudices.
“We’re brought up with attitudes. If I’m honest, I was brought up in a conservative Chinese American family with racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes. The huge irony now is that I’m an Asian lesbian. But now there are moments that I need to work on.” Wu’s previous feature was the ahead-of-its-time “Saving Face” from 2004.
That romantic comedy revolved around the reactions that a Chinese American mom has to her daughter being a lesbian. “Saving Face” was that rarity in American cinema, a feature about Chinese Americans written and directed by a Chinese American lesbian.
Wu wrote “Face” when she was in her 20s and was determined to get it made. Her two films have made Wu a trailblazer, which is why CAAMFest Online will be honoring her on May 20. The program includes a watch party for “The Half of It.” Festival director Masashi Niwano is delighted to honor her. “‘Saving Face’ was our festival opening night film years ago and continues to be one of the top films requested by our audiences,” Niwano said. “As an auteur and storyteller, Wu’s work always celebrates strong, bold women and brings welcomed visbility to the LGBTQ communities. She’s a true inspiration and on top of that, a great human being.” “Saving Face,” though, ran into obstacles. “Nobody thought I was going to get that movie made,” Wu says. As she shopped the film, typical reactions ran from “We love the script but …” to “We have to make this character white; we have to get rid of the gay thing … .” Part of the reason why there was such a long gap — 15 years — between Wu’s first and second feature was that her mother underwent a major health challenge. So Wu — who at one point worked for Microsoft in Seattle and has also worked in New York and Los Angeles as a scriptwriter — returned to San Francisco to care for her. She imagined she’d be there for a few weeks and then months turned into years. Her mom has since recovered, and Wu refers to the close bond with her mother as one of the greatest gifts of her life. When Wu refocused on writing again, it took only two drafts to develop interest in getting “Half of It” on film. She says it was an easier experience than “Face,” even though she’s disappointed that Netflix’s plan to have “Half of It” play in theaters didn’t materialize due to the coronavirus pandemic. But mainly she hopes it reaches a broad audience. “My hope,” she says, “would be that someone who lives in a part of the country that feels familiar (to what’s portrayed in the movie) moves into these characters’ lives and when that happens makes them think about that one family in town that is different.”