moonspinner55 Review of Half Nelson

Half Nelson (2006)

"I was 21 years when I wrote this song/I'm 22 now, but I won't be for long"

[7/10 · 8 August 2017]

Stark and riveting, "Half Nelson" proves we don't need reality entertainment: this non-glossy, non-'Hollywood' drama seems real enough. Junior high school history teacher and girls' basketball coach Ryan Gosling crawls into a crack-clouded fog once he gets home; one of his inner-city students knows his secret, yet she is harboring troubles of her own. Gosling is inherently charismatic and intrinsically smart while working from a gut instinct, resulting in a performance that is constantly surprising, always unpredictable; as an actor, he is so focused (and brave) that we don't recoil from him even as his character is turned inside-out, showing us behavior that is hardly pretty. Supporting cast is equally strong, aided by an outstanding screenplay from Anna Boden and director Ryan Fleck, who shies away from both sentimentality and melodramatic sensationalism. "Half Nelson" is so good, critics run the risk of overpraising it. It is mainly a quiet movie, a character study in a lower key, and yet what we absorb from it can last for days. *** from ****