HALF NELSON

Director: Ryan Fleck (Young Rebels, Gowanas Brooklyn)

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthonoy Mackie

I've managed to miss The United States of Leland, The Notebook, Remember the Titans and all of the other major entries in the Ryan Gosling acting catalog, so this was my first introduction to the MTV-crowd hearthrob. As first meetings go, this one was impressive. Gosling received an Oscar nomination for this role of a drug dependent teacher, and it's well deserved. His is not the best performance this year, but it's still excellent. The film as a whole is touching, a "little" story that focuses in on a small piece of society, the heart and soul of independent film-making.

Many independent films have a slow pace, and use images to eat up space that is missing in the screenplay. This is often necessity. It's just plain cheaper to edit in drawn out images on screen, rather than to film another scene with another set and have to pay everyone for another few days. As is often the case, necssity is the mother of invention though, and independent filmmakers have gotten this style to work. This isn't the first film to be shown in this style (by any means), but it still works. What the unshowy, inexpensive style does is let us focus on the actors. This film lives or dies by Gosling's performance, and wonderfully the film doesn't just live, it thrives.

Gosling is a hipster history professor at an inner city junior high school. It's lucky that Gosling's performance was so good, because I found the character himself to be nearly laughable. I can barely imagine how little respect I would have had for this guy as a teacher back in the day. His disheveled/cool appearance, 3 day beard, street-cred language and really absurd lessons on history (which was more silly, unfocused philosphy than history) were really kind of funny. It's a testament to Gosling's performance that he makes this guy work, completely. I believed and was intrigued by this ridiculous (on the surface) human being.

Gosling is a drug addict. He lives in a crappy apartment, and lives a mundane existence, and sometimes gets high. He doesn't have much in the world, and he doesn't accomplish much in the world, or so he thinks. Eventually he comes to realize that his contribution is through the kids he teaches, and that it's a big contribution, as worthwhile as any one could hope for. Before this understanding, though, he has to sink down deep into his dependency.

A student of his (Epps) becomes his friend, and the film follows their struggles in their environment. Epps becomes entangled with a local drug dealer (Mackie), eventually selling for him, while Gosling sinks deeper into dependency. There is an ominous sense of the future in this film. There's real doubt that either of these people will overcome their obstacles, although eventually, each can see their themselves in the struggles of the other and they do make progress. This is a wonderful film, really showing the best that low-budget independent filmmaking has to offer.

Standouts: Gosling in a wonderful performance. Perhaps not quite "great", but subtle and powerful.
Blowouts: Not much.

Grade: A-