Half Nelson

Ryan Gosling made happen what happens only once every so often. Made me look at what I seen before under a new magnifying light. He took me with him and showed me, with the most astonishing clarity, the complexity of a talented man dragged down by a legacy of good intentions and addiction. We're permitted to visit his family once and we understand what he's fighting with without any weapons. He doesn't blame anyone but he's the result of his own DNA and he knows it. His bright moments, the explanation of what History is for instance, is a glimpse into the man he could actually be, fully. The humanity that Ryan Gosling lends to his character on his darker moments it's as chillingly real as it is moving. The chemistry he establishes with the wonderful Shareeka Epps is as powerful as the one he established with me. I want to meet him, I want to meet Dan and while I was thinking that I realize I know him already. He lives next door to me, he's related to me, I was his friend. This is what superb performances do. They re-awake you.

Half Nelson, the first feature by director Ryan Fleck, steers clear of the inspiring clichés of teacher-student films and the usual violence of films set in the ghetto.

Half Nelson is a character study, with a meager plot stretched into a one-act film. Not to say this is a bad thing. If one wishes to be thoroughly entertained, steer clear of this film. If one wishes to have a comfortable time at the movies, steer clear of this film. However, if one wishes to view a unique and risky example of independent cinema, see this film.

Any viewer can tell how much blood and sweat went into making Half Nelson, which was shot on 16mm for less than $1 million. Ryan Gosling is truly admirable for seeing something in this screenplay. After breaking viewers' hearts in The Notebook, Gosling carries this film. Gosling plays Dan Dunne, a Brooklyn middle-school teacher who is addicted to crack cocaine, with admirable subtlety. It's a performance that will make the audience cringe with anguish and sympathy as Gosling takes one self-destructive step after another.

It isn't surprising to hear that Half Nelson was once a short film by Fleck titled Gowanus, Brooklyn. That film starred the young actress Shareeka Epps as a bright, tough African-American girl named Drey in Dunne's class. The film characterized her unlikely friendship with Dunne, after she discovered his crack habit. Epps reprises her role in Half Nelson, and is astonishingly good in her feature debut, giving a real, down-to-earth performance. Rounding out the main cast is the charismatic Anthony Mackie as Frank, a local drug dealer who is actually nice.

Anna Boden's screenplay, co-written by Fleck, is filled with ranges of intensity, awkwardness, sadness, and humor. Fleck veers from the norm in his direction, giving an extremely claustrophobic look into the lives of the characters.

Half Nelson, although somewhat painful to watch, will stay with you for a long time.

Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps were just plain awesome in this film by Ryan Fleck.

Gosling was impressive as an addict that was trying to hold on and teach. You could see the constant struggle as he fought giving up. The back and forth with Epps was quietly enchanting. Both certainly showed great acting talent in this film.

No loud action and prurient subject matter, just a sweet film showing a man's struggle and a girl's growing up realizing that drugs cripple. This film is hard to reduce to simple formulas. It transcends any mold and entertains in a reflective manner.

Ryan Gosling is truly amazing in his film role deliveries. His breakthrough role in "The Believer" 2001 was explosively intense. He consistently gives integral reflective portrayals, even for a departure romantic role in director Nick Cassavetes' "The Notebook" 2004, he was absolutely convincing as Noah who loves Rachel McAdam's Allie to the core. Here in "Half Nelson," he appears to disappear into Dan Dunne, a high school teacher with an ideal and a crack addiction problem. That sure sounds contradictory in terms: a teacher being a role model, while drug addiction a totally unacceptable behavior. As Dunne wrote on the blackboard in the beginning: 'Dialectics,' the film "Half Nelson" is in itself dialectics demonstrated.

Gosling's Mr. Dunne the history 'teach' doubling also as basketball coach, meeting (a solid matching delivery from) Shareeka Epps' Drey, the 13-year old student who 'found' him and 'witnessed' his secret - theirs is a relationship, naturally portrayed, of two 'opposing' forces as dialectics as can be. I felt Drey is the primary force that 'helped' Dunne's secondary force to yield and together, they created a contradiction anew as life goes on.

I remember from a 1969 book, a quote that might describe the heart of "Half Nelson": "Contradictions are the source of all movement and of all life. All things are in themselves contradictory and it is this principle, more than any other, which expresses the essence of things."

In a way, contradictory yet similar: Dunne and Drey both are 'on their own' trying to hang on, to manage the conflicts in their life's journey. Do we need all the answers in life? Do we have to know why someone behave as he/she does or something happen as it did? Director Ryan Fleck and co-writer/editor/producer Anna Boden tried not to 'over-explain anything'. Sometimes the answer can simply be: "I don't know."

"Half Nelson" is an ambitious film. Besides 'comments' on educational system, single parent family strife, Dan's addiction predicament, the script also managed to include political viewpoints unobtrusively expressed through talking heads of single student reciting historical civil rights movement events. The 'R' rating does indicate some intimate scenes, clever inter-cuts juxtaposing what the two forces were each doing at the moment. Music (by "Broken-Social-Scene") is timely applied at certain segments but sparingly. Well-rounded supporting cast, especially Anthony Mackie as Frank the 'friendly' dealer who may want to do right by Drey but only in the way he knows how within the realms of selling drugs (reminds me of w-d Boaz Yakin's "Fresh" 1994, brilliant debut performance by Sean Nelson as the 12-year old interacting with a dealer 'mentor').

Kudos to all involved on "Half Nelson". The film was shot in Brooklyn, New York. Thanks to ThinkFilm for being the distributor (documentary: Spellbound; Murderball; March of the Penguins; drama: The Last Kiss - Italy; Kontroll - Hungary; Gus Van Sant's Gerry).

Ryan Gosling delivers a performance in HALF NELSON that is a marvel to watch and to see the talent which this young man/actor brings to the film and screen. Every frame delivers the intensity and drama within this young teacher's life and the issues he handles with his addiction and how he strives to reach his students in the classroom through honesty, humor and the lessons of history delivered on screen.

Just watching Gosling in every frame is a triumph in what character development is all about, along with the brilliance of his performance. Gosling adds HALF NELSON to his outstanding work in the films THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND and the gorgeous NOTEBOOK.

Shareeka Epps as a young, struggling student, is a perfect foil to Gosling, and her intelligence and strength matches that of Gosling as they both deliver scenes that are memorable and tremendous. From the classroom to the basketball court, to the painful addiction scenes, Epps and Gosling make HALF NELSON come alive with anger, pain and the true pathos of life represented in America today.

With the final scene in the film, one can only hope that the characters may move from despair into lives which might give them a sense of hope, and finally a chance, as with the lessons of history, to move beyond their unhappy past into a brighter and more rewarding future.