Half Nelson - Review

"One thing doesn't make a man."
Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is a teacher at a high school in inner city New York. He is also a man struggling with a crack addiction. Half Nelson explores the two extremely separate lives this broken man lives, and the consequences of those lives meeting when one of his students finds out about his addiction and an unlikely friendship develops between the two characters.

The most immediate point of conversation regarding this film is Ryan Gosling's Academy Award nominated performance. From scenes where his character is teaching history to his class to ones of him lying on a bathroom floor after smoking too much crack, we never forget that the character we are following is fragile and in need of help. Living a predominantly solitary life, a lot of the acting comes not in the form of dialogue but in movements and subtle expressions, when watching Gosling's performance, one would never have guessed he was the same actor as the happy go lucky character we see in Crazy, Stupid, Love or the youthful and romantic portrayal he gave us in The Notebook. Dunne's choices and unawareness of the harm he is bringing to the children he cares so much about through his supporting of local drug dealers is infuriating to watch, the film presents drug addiction so poignantly as a character flaw, not as something that defines a character, and the anger that is stirred in the viewer regarding Dunne's lack of ability to look past the positive effects of his addiction is accompanied by a deep, most sincere sympathy. This film is without a doubt one of the most thought provoking and emotion-inducing independent films I have watched in a long time.

The film is a debut from director Ryan Fleck, and the haunting themes it deals with so effortlessly are moving to the point of tears at times. Fleck fired himself head-on into the independent film scene, proving himself to be a more than capable director and screenwriter and the combination of such well written characters with detailed backgrounds and the interesting shooting style (natural looking lighting, hand held shots - reminding me of Dog Day Afternoon), the film screams realism at the viewer, allowing a much deeper and more believable engagement with both the characters and the plot. The film was a roaring success when it circulated the 2006 film festivals and quite rightly so, showing that you don't need masses of experience in order to make a film that blows people away, Half Nelson is a treasure, one that will keep its sentimentality for years to come and should not be passed up on watching.