Do you remember when a while ago when there was a spate of classic literature as updated movies? Jane Austen’s Emma became Clueless, Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew became Ten Things I Hate About You. It’s not a new idea, but it’s always fun when a director you like takes a look at a stodgy old classic and manages to do it one better.

In the Half of It, Alice Wu takes on Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and does it more than one better. 

You may remember Alice Wu – she was the driving force behind Saving Face, which I found to be utterly delightful when I attended the premier in 2005. Folks were pretty happy to hear that she’d be behind this teen lesbian drama. Having watched it, I can recommend it highly.

As you may remember from Cyrano de Bergerac, the plot revolves around a beautiful girl, Aster, the big incoherent galumph who loves her, Paul, who hires Cyrano to write wooing words for him. In this case, Cyrano is played by Ellie Chu, a world-weary high school girl who makes money by writing other student’s papers and who avoids other people…but is also attracted to Aster.

In this version of the story, Aster is smart and sensitive and so is Ellie, while Paul really tries and it becomes almost impossible to dislike him.  The core of the story is the nature of love and, while I think they all get it completely wrong, it did remind me of something. In Volume 2 of Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Sayaka spends a lot of time thinking about the components of attraction. Why does someone confess feelings to another, what are those feeling composed of? There is a similar train of thought here – what makes us “fall in love” or even be attracted to another person? Sayaka comes to an obvious conclusion – that for most people, looks are the way they judge other people’s worth. When we’re young, this is especially sensible as we don’t have a lot of other factors we can use. We don’t know who we are, how can we really understand someone else. When Sayaka is thinking about how sempai liked her because she was pretty, it was a clue to her superficiality that Sayaka ultimately understood.

For Ellie, the story is not a romance, but it is a journey of self-discovery. There is a key scene where she and Paul are practicing his conversational skills. Ellie says, “I don’t need speaking practice,” but as we watch them converse it is apparent that yes, yes she did. Maybe not so she had words, which is Paul’s need, but so that she learns how to be a better human by caring about other humans. She does learn.  By the end of the story, all of the principals have changed for the better and while no one ends up with anyone else, we can hope they will all live happily ever after in lives that are richer for having known and cared about each other.

Racism is mentioned but never becomes a specific issue, but there are enough cues that its not truly subtext, either. The systemic oppression of religious community is also constant background refrain. These are the ever-present cosmic microwave background of this story, an ever-present relic of societal pressure.

The acting was superlative. The story was tight. This was a decent watch and I’ll look forward to more from Alice Wu.

Ratings:

Cinematography – 8 Very good until the end where it soared into sublime
Acting – 9
Story – 9 Great reworking of a brilliant, but deeply annoying classic
Lesbian – 6 Ellie’s journey is painful, but not excruciating.
Service – None

Overall – 9

Like I Am Not Okay With This, the story plumbs the depths of the torture of high school, with less blood.

DC’s very first African-American lead superhero, Black Lightning only got 11 issues from 1977 -1978 before DC cut many new titles. Black Lightning got another reboot in the 2000s and has been and out of several continuities since. In 2018, as part of it’s television franchise on the CW network, Black Lightning once again received a new starring role. And, frankly, I think this is a truly excellent television series.

I started watching the series on the CW, but life and a wonky DVR left me playing catch up all the time. Now that Black Lightning is on Netflix, I’ve finally had a chance to become current…and it’s still a really excellent series.

The DCU on CW is embedded in the gritty hyperrealism that I’ve never much loved about modern American comics but, in the way that it feels very like the long shadows of Tim Burton and Frank Miller in Batwoman, it works for Black Lightning.

High school Principal Jefferson Pierce has retired as the superhero Black Lightning as the story begins. What starts as a drug war, becomes a war against an oppressive government. Along the way, we’re introduced to enemies and allies, of course. Among the allies are Pierce’s daughters, Anissa and Jennifer, who also develop super powers.  It is Anissa, Thunder, I want to focus on here.

Anissa Pierce is a lesbian when the series begins, She has a girlfriend. She’s out to her family. That’s it. She’s out and as the story goes on, her sexuality is never once a point of contention (except for in on an alternate Earth, but this is DC and they can’t help themselves.) When Anissa is no longer with her girlfriend, she meets other women, sometimes sleeps with one. Eventually she ends up with another woman, Grace. And please understand that to write this paragraph I had to avoid about a dozen spoilers absolutely NONE of which had to do with Anissa’s sexuality. It’s simply a non-issue.

So, what is an issue? Nothing. It’s a great series that touches on all the buttons that make white people uncomfortable that it can possibly touch in a way that I really appreciate. It’s like a pokefest of “did THIS make you uncomfortable? NO? How about THIS?” and it’s fairly constant which is the fucking point of this particular form of addressing issues, isn’t it. The less this series is “for me,” the more I like it. The cast is almost wholly black, with a few folks who are Asian. There is one white ally guy is always in a support role.  The white people who show up are, with that one exception, cringe-making. Good. We can be all the stereotypes, from confederate flag-waving racists, to Parking Lot Peggy calling the cops on a black woman standing near her vehicle.

Cress Williams and Christine Adams do a bang-up job of playing Pierce and his scientist wife, Lynne, but for me the joy of watching is Nafessa Williams as Anissa/Thunder and my hero, China Anne McClain as Jennifer Pierce/ Lightning. It’s kind of a pun to say she’s incandescent, but seriously, she’s breathtaking. The relationship between the sisters is entirely realistic, as well. Overall superlative writing. I found this interview of Nafessa Williams by Cortney Williams for The Grio, about her role, in which she discusses being able to play an out black women in a loving family. It’s worth the read.

Ratings:

Cinematography – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 9
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 9

The things that hurt are supposed to hurt. The things that work best are supposed to work just like that. When there’s love, it’s lovely.

I grew up with Marvel and as I’ve admitted openly, DC has never been my boom, but I have to tell ya, with Batwoman, Thunder and Lightning on their television roster (and yes, I know about Supergirl, just haven’t watched any of it ,) I’m almost tempted to say I like the DCU on CW. ^_^; At least I can say, I like Black Lightning.

This past week, Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire premiered on streaming platform Hulu. This has been on my to-watch list since last autumn and now that I have watched it, I can say without reservation that it has some of the most superb acting I have ever seen.

From Hulu: “In 18th century France a young painter, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Day by day, the two women become closer as they share Héloïse’s last moments of freedom before the impending wedding.”  None of this is inaccurate, but it comes nowhere near to what the movie is actually about.

Marianne, a painter whose father is also an acclaimed painter, is brought in by Héloïse’s mother to paint her portrait. This is after Héloïse’s has already broken another painter by refusing to so much as show her face. Marianne is to paint her portrait without admitting she is doing so, or asking Héloïse to pose. As she acts as a companion, the two do become close.

When it becomes untenable for Marianne to continue to lie, she admits the truth and Héloïse begins to pose. And, as they both watch each other intently, they fall in love. The acting is the plot. A dark look from Héloïse that causes Marianne (and me) to flinch away, was the climax of that scene. Héloïse making the point that she is watching Marianne as intently as she is being watched was as intense as any seduction.

I hadn’t realized how traumatized I had been by Blue is the Warmest Color (La Vie  Adele), until Héloïse and Marianne kissed the first time. I cringed away from looking at the screen, fearing that this would become the same kind of invasive camerawork. Instead, this movie ultimately backed away. There is nudity, and some sex, but with very few exceptions, Héloïse and Marianne are left to themselves without us voyeuring at them when they make love.  We do spend time watching them be intimate, but not time watching them have sex. A more understanding and sympathetic gaze, rather than the intrusive one of Blue or, as Drew Gregory wrote on Auostraddle, a lesbian gaze.

When Héloïse’s mother leaves, Marianne, Héloïse and their maid Sophie – who is a fantastic character – spend a week together in a world in which the rules simply do not apply to them. If you watch this movie, I hope you enjoy these scenes as much as I did.  Ultimately the idyll has to end, of course. The epilogue is terse, tense and the final scene so sublimely acted I don’t have any words for it. Adèle Haenel deserves praise for that, if nothing else.

On IMDB, a reviewer notes that the entire movie is ASMR, and I had noticed that it was very calming and serene to listen to. But what really struck me most was that the movie was itself much like a painting, shifting over time, being built up of small things, and little touches like brushtrokes.

Ratings:

Cinematography – 8
Characters – 10
Story – 8
Lesbian – 10, but not LGBTQ in any way
Service – 4 Nudity, Sexual situations

Overall – 10

It was an exceptional movie. I certainly would recommend it to anyone who wished for a beautiful, finely-drawn historical lesbian romance.