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Half-Nelson

By Al Kratina
March 15, 2007 - 17:21

Half Nelson

2006, USA

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie, Monique Curnen

Directed by: Ryan Fleck

Written by: Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden

Produced by: Anna Boden, Lynette Howell, Rosanne Korenberg, Alex Orlovsky, Jamie Patricof

Genres: Drama

Release Date: February 13, 2007 (DVD)

MPAA Rating: Rated R for drug content throughout, language and some sexuality.

Distributors: THINKFilm

Running Time: 106 minutes

 
Quietly, director/co-screenwriter Ryan Fleck has made one of the best films of 2006. Subtlety, understatement, and nuance are at the heart of this cocaine-addiction drama, which is about as unexpected as using the term 'delicate' to describe a sequel to Jurassic Park. Normally, films about blow involve chainsaws, either Al Pacino or a cheap imitation, and sub-machine gun battles. Worse still, they tend to also have an audience full of hooting meatheads in over-sized Tupac T-shirts struggling to hear quotable lines over their own bluster and the jangling of their swap meet jewelry. Half-Nelson, on the other hand, contains neither machismo nor automatic weaponry, with limited cussing and only about as much testosterone as a particularly heated curling match.

 
Half-Nelson stars Ryan Gosling as a inner-city high school teacher, the civilizing white amidst a jungle of native ignorance, in the tradition of patronizingly racist films like  Dangerous Minds and The Substitute. But instead of helping the locals via book-learning, in the case of the former, or bullets, in the case of the latter, Gosling, as Dan Dunne, is the one who needs help. An inspiring history teacher and a failed writer, he's also a coke-head, whose limited finances are drawing him to the cheaper misery of crack. When one of his students discovers his problem, Gosling and the Drey, played by Shareeka Epps, build an unconventional, yet honest and believable relationship.

 

Gosling received a much-deserved Oscar nomination for his role, but his performance is no more impressive than the strong script and tight direction. Fleck leaves so much unsaid, it takes a few moments to acclimate to each scene, with the real meaning behind some of the film's sequences sinking in only after they’ve finished. The look of the movie is as gritty and realistic as one might expect, but as familiar as the visual devices are, they're refreshed by the originality of the rest of the film. The strange score by Toronto shoe-gazers Broken Social Scene is not as annoyingly trendy as you’d think, blending into the film instead of standing out as the hipster soundtrack dripping with irony I feared it would become. Dunne’s descent into addiction is contrasted with a rise in his moral character, inspired by his friendship with Drey, and those contrasting character arcs are what really elevate Half-Nelson. But it's the absence of cliché that really makes the film a success. Though the film takes place in a ghetto, the lack of loud rap music, gun fights, and tough talk from the drug dealers and users is such a breath of fresh air, that you almost don't notice that it stinks of ozone and crack smoke.

 

Rating: 9 on 10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12