Half Nelson is an unflinching portrait of a good teacher on a bad trip, writes Michael Dwyer
Just as movies invariably depict librarians as prim and bespectacled, and cops always seem to be struggling with drink and a broken marriage, the stereotypical screen image of a teacher is one of an inspirational figure who rocks the system and stimulates the students. Examples abound, from Goodbye Mr Chipsand To Sir, with Love, through Educating Rita, Dead Poets Societyand Dangerous Mindsto, more recently, School of Rock, The History Boysand Freedom Writers.
This recurring concept is turned on its head in Half Nelson, a compelling, melancholy drama that casts out the cliches. The young history teacher at its centre, Dan Dunne (played by Ryan Gosling), is indeed inspiring and unconventional in the classroom, but it takes a student half his age to open his sunken eyes to reality.
Half Nelson takes its title from the wrestling term for an immobilising hold from which it is hard but not impossible to escape. That serves as a metaphor for the cocaine addiction that threatens to destroy Dunne's life.
The bright, middle-class son of 1960s radicals, Dunne lives with his cat in a spartan apartment. An alarm clock wakes him when he is sprawled on the floor in the clothes he wore the day before. Teaching at a junior high school in a rundown area of Brooklyn brings out the best in Dunne, and he is popular with his pupils, cutting through the accepted formalities of education and encouraging them to think for themselves.
Dunne doubles as the coach of the girls' basketball team, and after a training session, one of his students, Drey (Shareekah Epps) discovers him stoned with a crack pipe in his hand.
Drey (short for Audrey) is only 13, but far more aware than most girls her age. Her parents are estranged, and she lives with her hard-working mother (Karen Chilton). Her older brother is in jail on drugs charges, having taken the fall for a local dealer (Anthony Mackie) who feels protective towards Drey while simultaneously trying to groom her as his courier.
An independent production shot in just 23 days, Half Nelson originated as a 19-minute short, which was voted best short film by the jury at the Sundance festival in 2004. Expanding on that material for a feature film, the screenwriters Ryan Fleck, who directed it, and Anna Boden, who edited it, invest it with depth and a strong emotional charge. Their treatment is commendably restrained and uncommonly honest, eschewing soft options and phoney epiphanies. The use of handheld camerawork in almost every scene heightens its edgy realism, reflecting Dunne's inner turmoil.
In a fine cast, young Epps is revelatory, proving herself a natural, intuitive performer in her first feature film. Gosling, a gifted actor who started out on television in his native Canada while still in his teens, made his mark in adult roles six years ago when he was 20 and gave an astonishing portrayal of a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer.
Here Gosling inhabits the role of the troubled teacher in a complex, detailed and subtly expressive performance that earned him an Oscar nomination this year and is in perfect sync with the movie's thoughtful, effectively low-key tone.
