The very premise of the film Half Nelson sets off a whole range of cliché alarms. Interracial tensions, civil rights, inspirational teacher figures, drug use, idealism gone sour and missing parental figures all fall under the wide purview of this ambitious little film. Throw in an inspirational sports victory and you could well have the most over-extended piece of Disney summer fluff ever.
The good news is that Half Nelson is a fine film; while clichéd at points, the level of acting talent from Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps and Anthony Mackie puts it a step above its peers. With lesser actors this film could well have drifted into Stand and Deliver levels of inspirational nonsense or exposed us to Crash-like degrees of emotional exploitation. Instead, all three turn in understated, nuanced performances and writer/director Ryan Fleck manages to leave the film wonderfully open-ended. It’s the sort of rare American film that demands audience participation and thought to really enjoy.
The story focuses on Dan Dunne (Gosling), a young, crack-addicted middle school civics teacher in Brooklyn. He’s a white man in an otherwise black classroom, struggling to get through to his students, not to mention survive his own self-destructive habits. Drey (Epps) is a bright, quietly brooding student who, early in the movie, catches Dan getting high in the girls’ bathroom. Frank (Mackie) is Dan’s dealer, and—over Dan’s objections—is befriending and recruiting Drey at the same time.
The basic narrative push of the film deals with the establishment of a friendship between Dan and Drey and the implications thereof. Both are so guarded—Dan screwed-up and misanthropic, Drey unsure yet savvy-cool—that even the basic understanding of what the other needs and wants is missing from their early interactions. Sure, there’s plenty of good old-fashioned leftist social commentary, but ultimately it’s a film about finding friendship in the least likely places.
Gosling, who proved himself with his brutal depiction of a neo-Nazi Jew in 2001’s The Believer, is the focal point of the film. He masterfully expresses a whole mix of impotent confusion and anger, squashed idealism, disappointment and emotionally charged stagnation. Dan is far from a heroic figure—aside from the drug use, there’s an attempted rape and some very poor interactions with students—and Gosling never plays for the audience’s compassion. It’s a credit to Fleck and co-writer Anna Boden that he never has to; they’ve managed to capture the painful malaise and discontentment of everyday life beautifully, leaving the audience sympathetic to Dan’s situation, if not his actions.
Epps, in her first film role, is equally good, playing Drey as quiet and impenetrable. She’s clearly full of the confusion of puberty and curiosity of the teenage years, but it’s all carefully hidden behind a wall of cool and street smarts. When she does crack a smile it’s almost surprising. As a dramatic foil, Frank is a well-conceived character: smartly dressed, polite and funny where Dan is scruffy, un-cool and, ultimately, a base head. Mackie plays him perfectly, yet he still seems a bit too romanticized: a big bad wolf that doesn’t seem to have any blood in its fur. One can understand the urge to play against stereotype, but the saintly drug dealer isn’t the most honest depiction either.
The movie does have its weak spots; Half Nelson is the first full-length drama from Fleck and Boden, and it shows at points. The movie started off as a short film titled Gowanus, Brooklyn, and as Fleck and Boden extended it from 19 to 106 minutes, extraneous elements were added. Dan’s interaction with his parents late in the movie is a heavy-handed shot at aging, unenlightened liberals; his dealings with an ex-girlfriend feel forced. Likewise, the examination of Drey’s home life seems both unnecessary and distractingly rote: overworked mom, absent father, jailed brother. All she’s missing is the drunkard uncle and the sassy-wise grandmother.
From a technical standpoint, Andrij Parekh’s cinematography is mediocre, failing to achieve a cohesive vision and repeatedly falling back on trite focus shifts to express the effects of drugs. It’s cheap, boring camera work; one expects more from such a forward-thinking film. The Canadian indie-rock band Broken Social Scene contributes a woozy original score, as well as several album tracks, to good effect, although their ambient work is not terribly compelling.
Still, as a whole, Half Nelson is not to be missed. It takes great attention to detail and careful thought to be able to manage as many delicate issues as Boden and Fleck have tackled here. It’s even more of an accomplishment that three lead actors are so able to bring these characters and ideas to life in such a complex, thoughtful drama.
