This is another Chinese American film in that the writer and director Alice Wu is Chinese and so too is the female lead and her father. However what is especially fascinating about this film is that it is firmly about American life and the Chinese ethnicity of the main character is treated as just another kind of American-ness. Apart from that it’s among the new crop of current generation coming-of-age film. It pulls its punches too much and is just too plain nice to be truly great but I’m still amazed how far we have come since the toxic teen comedies of the 1980s and 1990s.

Ellie Chu and her father make for unusual transplants from mainland China in the middle of nowhere that is Squahamish, USA. They originally emigrated to the US to make more money but despite having a PhD, her father’s poor grasp of English makes it hard for him to find a good job so he is the station master for the town’s train station. Furthermore he seems to have lost his drive after Ellie’s mother passed away. Meanwhile Ellie is the stereotypical studious Asian student and makes extra money by writing essays for her classmates. A football player Paul Munsky who has a good heart but terrible with words wants to pay Ellie to help him write a love letter to Aster Flores, the most beautiful girl in school who is already dating the scion of the richest family in town. This single letter turns into an extended correspondence of more letters and text messages as Paul lacks the confidence to speak to Aster on his own. Ellie and Aster thus bond with each other over their shared love of art and art films, though Aster believes that it is Paul she is communicating with.

This kind of mistaken identity conceit to set up a misaimed romance feels tired and predictable to me but thankfully the rest of the film makes up for it. The characters are well rounded to avoid falling into too familiar archetypes. So Paul might not be academically-inclined but that doesn’t mean he’s dumb and Aster’s boyfriend might be self-centered but that doesn’t mean that he’s a total asshole. It’s kind of sweet to have Paul and Ellie’s father sort of bond with each other despite the language barrier and cultural gulf due to their shared interest in food and cooking. I am a little disappointed in that the father’s character isn’t used more and Ellie never has a confrontation with him over her realization that she might be gay. Also, I think that the banter between Ellie and Aster that is supposed to establish them as being soulmates is the type of quirky, drive-by philosophy that only teenagers would think is insightful.

In the end, this film is not that significant and is just kind of pleasant to watch. It is nice that not everything in the film fits together perfectly so that it feels more natural. Plus I do love the casual assertion of being Chinese American as just another kind of American. There are a bunch of other kids in school who try to make fun of Ellie’s Chinese name but they are lame and no one else buys into it. Most of all however I like that this firmly belongs in the current crop of coming of age films that no longer feels the need to ramp up the toxicity for comedic effect or frame the lives of teenagers as being all about wanting to have sex.