The opening monologue is the story told by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium. Aristophanes was a comedic playwright at the time of Socrates and Plato and is considered the greatest Greek comedic writer. The Symposium is a dialogue about a dinner that Socrates attends. During dinner Socrates, in typical fashion, begins to ask questions of his host and the other guests. The dialogue centers on the topic of love, each interlocutor attempts to answer the question what is love? Aristophanes' story tells of how humans use to be whole and the gods got jealous and split us apart. We spend our lives searching for that other half. According to Aristophanes, our other half could be someone of the same or opposite gender.
A photo of Ellie's deceased mother is shown twice in the film. This is in fact a picture of actress Joan Chen, who starred in Alice Wu's directorial debut Salvando las apariencias (2004).
Aster's text handle is Diega Rivero (a play on the name of Mexican artist Diego Rivera), alluding to Aster's Mexican heritage.
Lewis doesn't actually speak Mandarin, but Alice Wu recorded the eight lines for her so she could practice memorizing them.