Sometimes a film review comes out with ease. I sit down to write and the words just flow onto the page (err . . . screen) with meaning, passion and eloquence. But I’ll be honest. Other times it is like pulling teeth – I can’t spell, think or make a coherent sentence for the life of me. Unfortunately, this review of Half Nelson is falling into the later category . . . not because there is nothing to say . . . but because it was so good, I’m speechless. What do you do when a movie makes your best sentences of description, praise and laudation seem utterly and hopelessly pathetic?
Keep trying I guess. And buy the DVD.
Half Nelson is the story of Dan Dunne – a 20-something history teacher at an inner city middle school. Dunne teaches because he loves kids, because he has a passion for teaching, for thinking, for pushing past limitations and boundaries. Shunning the standard curriculum, Dunne leads his classes in a manner that is far from conventional and simultaneously manages to coach the girls basketball team, work on a children’s book and smoke crack.
Torn apart by the desire to change the world in a big way and faced with the depressing reality that he can’t, Dunn gets through each day with a good dose of powder. When 13 year old Drey (Shareeka Epps) finds him on the floor of the girls’ locker room higher than a kite, Dunne’s life clearly demonstrates the dialectics he loves so much – two forces in crushing opposition.
The remainder of Half Nelson follows the unlikely friendship that develops between Drey and Dunne, chronicling its highs, lows and ever evolving forces of opposition. When Drey dips into the drug trafficking world, Dunn’s violent reaction spirals us deeper into the idea of dialectics, deeper into just how much of an effect we can have on the people and the world around us.
Director Ryan Fleck had all the pieces necessary to make Half Nelson big, blockbuster and mainstream but instead chose, through soft and inviting cinematography, the inserting of history snippets spoken directly to the camera, invasive angles and a soft grainy focus reminiscent of home videos, to keep this film decidedly indie. . And by breaking from the realm of the mainstream, Half Nelson is resultantly free –free to be honest, forthright and deeply thought-provoking.
Half Nelson’s lead actors take this freedom and run with it. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it can’t be expressed how perfect Ryan Gosling is in the role of Dan Dunne. Wrapped in palpable, genuine and empathy-inducing emotional turmoil, Dunne, through Goslings adept handling, becomes someone you pull for, someone you hope for, someone you love. He’s the teacher that made you think, that challenged your perspective, that (if you let him) helped to mold you into the person you could be.
Shareeka Epps provides Gosling with an excellent foil. She makes Drey quiet, distant, unreadable . . . until a smile transforms her face with tender magic. Impressive and powerful, Epps says so much without uttering a single word. With a face that emotes so easily and clearly, she could be little else but an actress.
Worth noting is Anthony Mackie’s performance as Frank. Seeming more of a benevolent uncle than a drug dealer, Mackie blurs the lines between good and evil, between genuine love and affection stemming from selfish motivations. His interactions with Drey provide another layer of conflict, another hazy lens to look through, another example of two forces in crushing opposition.
In one of the most poignant scenes of the film, Dunne confronts Frank, accusing him of corrupting Drey. When Gosling could say so much, he sums up the entirety of his overwhelming emotions with an anguished, “I don’t know! I don’t know.” And that is really the truth of things isn’t it? We all don’t know. We are just sort of swinging blind, hoping against hope that our actions, in some small way, contribute to something bigger and better than ourselves.
So there it is – my attempt at a review for Half Nelson. Now go buy the DVD.
