The new Netflix film “The Half of It” is a coming-of-age dramedy that tackles love, friendship, self-discovery and tolerance.

It’s writer-director Alice Wu’s second movie — 15 years after her first. She wanted a deadline, so she wrote a $1000 check to the NRA, an organization she does not support, and told her friends if the script wasn’t done in five weeks, that check was going in the mail. 

Wu explains why she picked Netflix as the home for “The Half of It,” despite her love of the old-school theatrical release. And she explains her on-again, off-again relationship with the industry, which started when she quit her job at Microsoft to make the groundbreaking 2005 indie “Saving Face.”