Nacho cheese. Half Nelson is a film that ticks all the requirements for indie movie making; shot largely with hand held cameras in close up, a soundtrack that consists of whining miserablists and a lead character played by a bleary eyed Canadian with a groovy designer beard. At first this makes it somewhat off-putting but stick with it, the film overcoming its stereotypes and providing a moving, low key study of a man consumed by his inner demons. This is largely due to the quality of acting put in, leads Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps investing a huge stock of humanity in their subjects. So much so that they even manage to make the slow pace and dream-like atmosphere into a watchable little gem that despite not being as good as some critics would have you believe, is still worth rooting out.
Gosling plays teacher Dan Dunne. By day he galvanises his students with his passionate (if somewhat repetitive) history lessons on the American civil rights movement. Handsome, intelligent and entirely capable of wooing the pants off his female co-workers, his outward confidence masks a dark self-loathing which sees him snorting vast quantities of cocaine every night. His isolated bubble of self-destruction however is burst when thirteen year old Drey (Epps) catches him toked up on Bolivian Marching Powder in the school toilets. Instead of running to the faculty though, Drey brings him water and helps him through the comedown, this awkward moment leading to an unlikely friendship between the two.
Needless to say then that despite being set in an inner-city high school largely populated by an angry black teenagers, Half Nelson is a far cry from the bombastic likes of 187 or Dangerous Minds. The tone is considerably more subtle and while the plot synopsis might raise the odd eyebrow, Dunne's relationship with Drey is more reminiscent of a big brother looking after his younger sister than anything particularly dubious. Unlike the aforementioned movies, Half Nelson also avoids high melodrama and ends ambiguously, offering no clear cut solutions to Gosling's addiction or indeed, if he intends to stop at all. Consequently, Half Nelson doesn't really feel like a movie but a snapshot of two people's lives at one potentially crucial moment when they overlap.
The story admittedly isn't especially interesting in its own right and at times it slows to a crawl, but it's held together by the two leads. Gosling at first seems to have graduated from the Nicholas Cage school of acting by uh...you know, taking a really...hmmm. Long. Time to...to...say anything, but as the film unfolds you notice how impressive his performance is. Every flicker of those sad, sad eyes is carefully timed, each sigh carefully nuanced and by the time the credits roll, there's no question his Oscar nomination was well deserved. Epps on the other hand puts in a 'mature-beyond-her-years' performance of a young girl faced with a wealth of social frustration (her brother is in jail, her uncle is a drug dealer). At times she is furiously independent, at others she expresses an intensely child like vulnerability and it is her accusatory gaze that first opens Dunne's eyes to how far down the line he has travelled.
As an acting masterclass then Half Nelson is essential watching. However, it is also a film that shys away from flashy showmanship and doesn't patronise the audience with over the top messages about the evil of drugs. The worst physical affliction Dunne gets is a nose bleed, but the sheer mental toll that his habit has caused is all too evident in his hunched over resignation. It might not be as good as Scorsese's masterpiece, but this is still one of the best portraits of urban male angst since Taxi Driver, only with dialectics and cocaine instead of bullet-riddled pimps and special forces hair cuts.
Gosling plays teacher Dan Dunne. By day he galvanises his students with his passionate (if somewhat repetitive) history lessons on the American civil rights movement. Handsome, intelligent and entirely capable of wooing the pants off his female co-workers, his outward confidence masks a dark self-loathing which sees him snorting vast quantities of cocaine every night. His isolated bubble of self-destruction however is burst when thirteen year old Drey (Epps) catches him toked up on Bolivian Marching Powder in the school toilets. Instead of running to the faculty though, Drey brings him water and helps him through the comedown, this awkward moment leading to an unlikely friendship between the two.
Needless to say then that despite being set in an inner-city high school largely populated by an angry black teenagers, Half Nelson is a far cry from the bombastic likes of 187 or Dangerous Minds. The tone is considerably more subtle and while the plot synopsis might raise the odd eyebrow, Dunne's relationship with Drey is more reminiscent of a big brother looking after his younger sister than anything particularly dubious. Unlike the aforementioned movies, Half Nelson also avoids high melodrama and ends ambiguously, offering no clear cut solutions to Gosling's addiction or indeed, if he intends to stop at all. Consequently, Half Nelson doesn't really feel like a movie but a snapshot of two people's lives at one potentially crucial moment when they overlap.
The story admittedly isn't especially interesting in its own right and at times it slows to a crawl, but it's held together by the two leads. Gosling at first seems to have graduated from the Nicholas Cage school of acting by uh...you know, taking a really...hmmm. Long. Time to...to...say anything, but as the film unfolds you notice how impressive his performance is. Every flicker of those sad, sad eyes is carefully timed, each sigh carefully nuanced and by the time the credits roll, there's no question his Oscar nomination was well deserved. Epps on the other hand puts in a 'mature-beyond-her-years' performance of a young girl faced with a wealth of social frustration (her brother is in jail, her uncle is a drug dealer). At times she is furiously independent, at others she expresses an intensely child like vulnerability and it is her accusatory gaze that first opens Dunne's eyes to how far down the line he has travelled.
As an acting masterclass then Half Nelson is essential watching. However, it is also a film that shys away from flashy showmanship and doesn't patronise the audience with over the top messages about the evil of drugs. The worst physical affliction Dunne gets is a nose bleed, but the sheer mental toll that his habit has caused is all too evident in his hunched over resignation. It might not be as good as Scorsese's masterpiece, but this is still one of the best portraits of urban male angst since Taxi Driver, only with dialectics and cocaine instead of bullet-riddled pimps and special forces hair cuts.