Half Nelson

Friendship is a curious miracle, as varied and unpredictable as life itself. According to popular online networks like Facebook, an individual’s friends usually seem to share similar ages, characteristics and social statuses. Any friendship out of the ordinary is usually deemed creepy by our collective definition. In Half Nelson, the triumphant achievement of young filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, a thoroughly unlikely bond forms between two people that contemporary society would certainly frown upon. When thirteen-year-old Drey (Shareeka Epps) finds her teacher/coach Dan (Ryan Gosling) getting high in a school locker room, the maintaining of professional boundaries between the two of them instantly dissolves. What results is a friendship unlike any I’ve seen onscreen.

An impeccably observed slice of life in the same league with The Station Agent (2003) and The Squid and the Whale (2005), Half Nelson deconstructs our perceptions of the perfect ideal by making us root for characters whose good intentions are as numerous as their flaws. Dan wants to protect Drey from becoming swallowed up into the underworld of drug dealing, which has sent her brother to prison, and led to her family receiving financial assistance from his boss, local dealer Frank (Anthony Mackie). Yet Dan isn’t exactly a role model himself, and he knows it. He seems to be living in a state of perpetual adolescence, and is affectionately labeled a “big baby” by his ex-wife.

Gosling’s performance is a revelation. After scoring a hit with Nick Cassavetes’s The Notebook, his work in Half Nelson seems more worthy of a film by Nick’s father, John. Entirely natural and instantly magnetic, Gosling never once seems to be ‘acting.’ His classroom antics have a real vitality, as he uses hand-wrestling in a class lecture, spouts phrases like “oh no you di – in’t”, and is asked by the principal to spit out his gum. Yet his passion for the children and their futures is also tangible, and there’s true poignancy when he later admits, “the kids keep me focused.” Newcomer Epps is equally impressive as the student naturally unfazed by Dan’s addiction. Her piercing stare seems to penetrate all of Dan’s foibles, and glimpse the good heart lying beneath. Despite their age difference, Dan and Drey seem to be communicating on the same level of playful immaturity and damaged wisdom. No tidy happy ending could ever summarize this relationship, and the filmmakers wisely avoid any attempt to do so.

Director/co-writer Fleck and producer/co-writer/editor Boden based this film on their own 2004 short Gowanus, Brooklyn, and their self-professed love of films from the 70’s, usually involving friendships between messed up individuals (notably Harold and Maude), is certainly apparent here. When Gosling struts into the teacher’s lounge hung over, clad with sunglasses, and wearing a band-aid bearing the American flag on his lip, he resembles the type of classic antiestablishment hero usually embodied by Bud Cort or Jack Nicholson. Their desire to make a narrative film of political relevance can also be sensed, especially in key confessionals by Dan’s class, directed at the camera.

Yet Fleck and Boden wisely position their complex characters as the film’s primary focus before any genre styling or political preaching. While the shaky, hand-held cinematography by Andrij Parekh, initially threatens to become a series of extreme close-ups (a la the awful recent miniseries The Path to 9/11), it eventually proves effective, as does the terrific score by Broken-Social-Scene. The entire ensemble is strong, although Mackie stands out as the drug dealer whose fatherly treatment of Drey could be interpreted any number of ways. When Dan states “one thing does not make a man”, he’s expressing the film’s philosophy that stereotypes could never do justice to an existence layered with ambiguity, hypocrisy, and the clumsy but pure attempt to do good.

Fleck and Boden were present at the opening night screening of Half Nelson at the Music Box Theatre. As they answered audience questions, I was amazed at how they looked and sounded exactly like any average film major at Columbia. When asked a technical question from a seemingly jaded gentleman, Fleck sardonically translated, “He just said this was the best movie he ever saw.” They reminisced about how Gosling was on location a month before shooting, visiting local schools and discussing each scene in detail. When I later asked what advice he had for today’s film students, Fleck admitted this was the first time anyone had asked him that. He remembered asking Jim Jarmusch the same question at the Seattle Film Festival’s screening of Dead Man ten years ago. His answer was familiar but true: don’t wait for the perfect moment to make your film. Gather your friends, and just do it.

Perfection is a myth not found in the reality of Half-Nelson. The struggle of its characters, however, achieves a greatness that is all its own.

Rating: ***** (out of *****)