Half Nelson
Director: Ryan Fleck
Grade: A+

Watching Half Nelson I suddenly recalled a recent episode of the Simpsons revolving around Bart’s nomination of Mrs. Krabaple for Teacher of the Year. Like all late episodes of the Simpsons, it wasn’t very funny, but it did contain one indispensable scene. The judges for the competition were watching tapes sent in by other students only to find that many of the teachers act not unlike Robin Williams character in Dead Poet’s Society. One of the judges laments: “Dead Poet’s Society has ruined the teacher of the year award.”

For the most part, this sentiment carries over to the world of film in which the so-called “inspirational teacher films” have been ruined by all the other films that adhere to that Dead Poet’s standard of over sentimentalizing their subject matter. With films such as Dead Poet’s and Dangerous Minds informing our decision on such matters, a revelatory film such as Half Nelson has to fight an uphill battle against our beleaguered expectations. Which is why you have to trust me when I tell you that Half Nelson is the best film of this year.

I know I’ve said this before. I said it about Bubble and I said it about Tristram Shandy. But that was before I saw this. There’s little doubt in my mind now that no better film will along the rest of this year since Half Nelson has already so succinctly demonstrated to me that exact reason why cinema exists. In the current film climate where movies appear to be afraid of politics, Half Nelson takes a definite stand with a screenplay that not only embraces its dramatic strengths, but pushes it further, drawing upon history and politics to chisel out its finely constructed characters. A film like this could have easily aimed for broad appeal, but it bravely focuses its efforts, forging an uncompromising subject matter that penetrates to the heart of its characters beliefs and perspectives.

The main character, Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling in an Academy worthy performance), plays an inner city History teacher who carries with him a dark secret – he’s a drug addict. This may seem like a sort of gimmick – take the conventional inner city teacher storyline and turn it on its head by making him corrupt – but the film actually brings out this character flaw with such subtlety and precision that the story grows organically around its dilemma, rather than merely hinging on it.

His secret is uncovered by Drey (Shareeka Epps) who discovers him after a basketball game smoking crack in the girls locker room. Although it’s clearly a pivotal point in their relationship, neither one explicitly references it again for the rest of the movie. But their bond nevertheless intensifies as a result of it. As we begin to glimpse into Drey’s world, we discover that she has her own problems to deal with. Her brother’s in jail, her father’s absent and her mother is always working. The only person who appears to offer her any support is the neighborhood drug dealer, Frank, who provides her family with money in exchange for the silence of her brother (a former “employee” of his) who didn’t name his name after his arrest. Coincidentally, Frank also happens to be one of Dan’s dealers. This sets up a later scene in the film (which I won’t reveal here) of such intense beauty and painful honesty.

The film reminded me of the best work of David Gordon Green with its dialogue that feels improvised, and the psuedo-documentary approach to its direction. But director Ryan Fleck handles the camera work with more intensity than Green (whose more content with aping Malick), pulling the shots in very tightly and creating an almost claustrophobic atmosphere that absorbs us in its characters. But more than anything, the film takes its subject matter and refuses to simplify it. Frank, the dealer, could easily be the film’s villian, but the screenplay shapes him fairly, creating a character that comes off as a nice guy while somehow still representing a sort of evil. Dan, similarly, doesn’t alway make the right move. He’s a brilliant teacher with brilliant ideas, but his treatment of women shows another side that’s less than encouraging. Nothing comes off as completely black and white, and sometimes the film offers up conflicts with no real solution. This is a film of limitless truth and beauty and should go down as on of the greatest American films of this century.