Half Nelson

Half Nelson is the kind of film that completely infatuates indie clichés like myself. It’s a low budget masterpiece with a stunningly simple plot that achieves greatness by breathing life into characters so earnest that the audience has no choice but to feel for them. With dialogue this true, cinematography this plainly beautiful, and performances this honest, it’s hard not to believe that these characters really exist. It’s disappointing that you cannot talk to them and give them advice of your own. Though, the truth is that these people probably DO exist. Not these exact characters (I’ve not reached hallucinations yet), but people living similar lives and making similar choices each and every day.

Those choices would involve drugs, family, relationships, and other complex subjects. The film stars Ryan Gosling (the man who should but inevitably won’t win the Best Actor statuette come Oscar night) as Dan Dunne, a history teacher at a Brooklyn public school. In the classroom, Mr. Dunne is an enthusiastic educator. Privately, he’s coping with a drug addiction while trying to navigate his relationships with family, friends, women, and students. The film deals primarily with one student in particular: Drey (newcomer Shareeka Epps who also lent her stoic maturity to the short film upon which this feature is based). Drey is more attentive than other kids at her school. She notices Mr. Dunne’s drowsy eyes in class and later finds him reeling from drug use in the girl’s bathroom. They form a thin and unexaggerated connection that endures despite frequent lapses in judgment by both individuals.

Drey is slowly finding herself drawn by circumstance into the profession of drug dealing as Dunne continues to lose himself in his own addiction. Eventually, the two cross tragic paths in a chillingly powerful scenario of utter despair (scored brilliantly by fellow indie darlings Broken Social Scene). The results are not uplifting or life improving in any way. This is not an inspirational student/teacher movie in which the brilliant professor coaches a young diamond in the rough to great intellectual heights (for that see Akeelah and the Bee which is quite good in its own way). This is simply the very sincere story of two people in tight spots who form a small bond that’s big enough to ease them out a bit.

By film’s end, Dunne is still a juvenile loner seeking shallow sensations at ever turn and Drey is still a young girl in a difficult neighborhood who had to grow up much too fast. They do not necessarily get a happy ending, but they do get a second chance.

Grade: A+