“Half Nelson” was one of those movies that screamed, “I’m trying really hard to be like the other hipster kids!” We (by we I am referring to my group) found this movie from a list that popped up on StumbleUpon and it looked pretty promising. The movie is about a teacher, Dan Dunne, with a drug problem who becomes friends with one of his students, Drey.
The part I was most excited about was Ryan Gosling. This movie came out two years after he had done “The Notebook” and this role of was VERY different from the soft and romantic Noah. He did a really good job with his role, but I thought he was too young. On the IMDb trivia page, it says they originally wanted someone in their thirties and then changed it once Ryan joined the project. The age did, however, make the inappropriate relationship between him and Drey more believable to me. The girl who played Drey did a good job, but it seemed like her character was the stereotypical strong but silent type.
I think the best word I could use to describe this movie is awkward. At some points it was so awkward, I felt like they were doing it on purpose just to make me uncomfortable. The actors and the situations were all just awkward. There are plenty of movies about an adult having a relationship with a kid that somehow makes the adult a better person, but this one was just too weird. I know I am just speaking for myself, but I never went to a teacher’s house, got rides home from them, or danced with them at a school event. The awkwardness aside, the movie was just slow. Thinking back on it, hardly anything happened. Ryan Gosling did some drugs, got mad at Anthony Mackie, did more drugs, the girl cleans him up, the end.
At first I thought the movie was really going to follow the teacher, but it split the time pretty evenly between Dan and Drey as well as their time together. I like that the movie developed a back story for both of them, but it required a lot of piecing together. I don’t mind that the movie made me think, but it wasn’t done in the most fluent way. As a side note, if you like puzzles, watch Memento.
My dad has a question every time we watch something: was that a movie or a film? To him, a movie is mindless entertainment whereas a film is intended to convey some kind of message. This would be a film in his book, and mine for that matter. I give this movie a 5 out of 10. I do not think it is a must-see, but some people like these kind of indie movies so it might be for you.
Allison
Half Nelson is a movie that the three of us stumbled upon when looking for a Netflix movie to watch and review. We saw that Ryan Gosling was in it so we thought, “we like his movies now I’m sure this will be good”. So we decided to give it a shot.It is one of Gosling’s earlier movies it came out in 2006. Gosling plays high school History teacher and girls basketball coach Dan Dunne. The movie is set in present day in a Brooklyn Public school. The school is primarily black and Hispanic. Dunne tries to get the students attention by using a different teaching methods then most teachers would. In the middle of trying to coach the girls’ basketball team and teach his students history Dunne is fighting an addiction to drugs. Gosling plays the character well making me feel like he truly was cracked out. He develops an interesting relationship with one of his students Drey (Shareeka Epps). I personally felt that Drey truly captivated the struggle of a 13 year old girl trying to find her place in her broken world. Throughout the movie their relationship changes but not in the way you might think.
I found Half Nelson to be a challenging movie for me to watch. I tend to get attached to characters and truly feel sympathy for them. The whole movie is pretty slow itself. If you are looking for an interesting movie to watch and you have the patience to wait for it to pan out. I would recommend it to you. As for me I felt that it deserves 5 out of 10. I believe the acting was great but the story was to slow for me. It was hard for me to get involved with the movie because of the pace.
Kelsy
This movie came to my attention while searching through Netflix to watch and review a film. It stood out to me because I recognized one of the actors to be award-winning, Ryan Gosling and I thought I’d give it a try.
“Half Nelson” was a ‘quiet’ hit, first debuting in 2006. Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is the teacher and girls’ basketball coach of a junior high school where the inner-city African-American and Hispanic kids attend. Even though Dunne is a devoted history teacher, he also leads a secret life battling a drug addiction. When Dunne’s drug filled nightlife extends into daytime hours, one of his students Dre (Shareeka Epps) discovers his addiction and it leads to a close friendship between them. Dunne is not your average history teacher. He tries to make the curriculum easier to understand by teaching outside the scope using ideas to energize his class. I think Ryan Gosling portrays his character well because he is an addict that uses powder cocaine, which is predominately used by ‘whites.’ He is just a man who has a distant relationship with his family and is lost within in him. The only thing motivating him is the kids he teaches every day. The relationship between he and Dre, is unlike one you would think of when referring to a teacher and a student. The few people who know of them think it is inappropriate but Dunne helps Dre find herself among the drugs and prison walls that surround part of her family. Even though Dunne is a drug addict, he enjoys having the companionship which is much-needed for his sake.
I didn’t know what to expect with a movie I had never heard anything about. It started very slow and never really picked up. I was expecting something more. I understood what the movie was about easily but it seemed like it was never going any place and you never knew what was going to happen next. There weren’t really any visual effects for this movie. The film’s budget was $700,000, the low-end for production. The quality was not fine, but kind of choppy. Only a few camera shots developed each scene. For the majority of the movie the dialogue was slow, a lot of time spent with slow responses. My rating of this movie would be 3 out of 10. I would not recommend spending money to see this movie, as to the fact that it was very slow and boring.
Derrick
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