I watched Half Nelson with a friend who hates Ryan Gosling. He has a huge crush on Rachel McAdams and he’s actually met her on a few occasions, and they've had great conversations. On one of those occasions he also met Gosling, whom he says was a jerk.
But, he tried to put his preconceived notions aside and I tried to forget Gosling’s past roles in The Notebook and my personal favourite, his stint as Shawn on Breaker High, and we both tried our best to go into the film with an open mind.
And to be honest, it was easy to forget everything that came before, because Gosling is refreshingly new and genuine in this role. He’s amazing as Dan Dunne, a high school history teacher in inner-city New York.
He’s charismatic and riveting as a teacher and basketball coach who hates establishment and admits that the education system and his role in it are both part of the “machine” that is keeping the people down. He seems to believe in the potential he has to change lives and make a difference though, and it’s easy to accept that he’s the right person in the right place to actually do it.
In his classroom lectures he keeps coming back to this notion that there is conflict in everything. In one scene he describes the American civil rights movement to his black students. Butting his two fists against each other as he stands in front of the class, he suggests that at one time the people in the south who believed blacks were equal citizens were a minority. But they kept resisting against those who disagreed, and eventually, the minority became the majority.
The metaphor is a microcosm of what is going on in his own life.
He’s addicted to crack, and it’s increasingly becoming the majority that is smothering the minority – affecting his decisions and his actions and dragging him down, and robbing from his ability to connect and make a difference in his students’ lives.
He’s convincing in both of these separate roles, and continues to be believable as these elements of his life merge closer and closer together as they battle to overwhelm one another.
One of the most powerful scenes in the film comes when one of his students, Drey, played by Shareeka Epps-- a player on the girls’ basketball team he coaches –- discovers his addiction. He’s a broken man at this point, and she stays with him and takes care of him as he pleads, “please don’t leave me.”
The story hinges on this relationship and the trust that builds in their unlikely friendship, along with their mutual connection to the drug dealer who supplies Dunne’s habit.
And Drey is also in the midst of a struggle in her own life, with opposites doing battle inside of her heart. She’s at a crossroads, and you get the sense that her relationship with Dunne is the factor that is going to lead her down one path or the other – with vital consequences for the rest of her life.
Half Nelson is gritty and pulls few punches. There are some awkward and even painful scenes to watch – one where Dunne chaperones a high school dance while high on cocaine, another where he pays a late night visit to a female teacher, also while high.
This struggle, this ongoing battle that Dunne goes through, is always present. Even when he sinks to some of the deepest depths, redeemable qualities are almost always present, like when he arguably risks his life to look out for Drey despite the fact his own life is a complete mess.
"I had to do something, right?’ he asks.
Like Dunne’s life, and Drey’s, there are lots of unanswered questions and uncertain endings when the credits roll. What is certain though, is that both have real conflicts in their lives, real temptations pulling them away from what’s right, and their choices and dilemmas reflect real life crossroads that we all face -- decisions that have severe consequences.
Their problems are deep rooted, and the film doesn’t sort everything out and tie it up in a neat package because these are issues that simply can’t be solved neatly and quickly. In that way the film is painfully honest and serves as an accurate mirror for real life.
Broken Social Scene takes care of most of the soundtrack, using beautiful walls of sound and distortion to paint the emotional scenery for the film.
I recommend this movie.
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