Half Nelson

An intelligent drama film. Ryan Gosling was extremely impressive.

3.75. Is Gosling one of my favorite actors at this point? Guy has consistently delivered for years.

We've all seen a movie solely because an actor is in it...to me this movie is just that thing with Ryan Gosling

Half Nelson immediately sinks its way into your heart. It's mature and deep as it explores human weakness and the desire to do good. Gosling and Epps are a magical acting pair as they play each other's strengths with an older, struggling person trying to help and young, strong person. It's pure and sincere. The film ends openly, but the humanity it conveyed is a piece of indie film gold.

Yes the acting is great and there are some popular actors in this, but I found myself scrolling through my phone. It wasn't what I expected. It was ok, but pretty boring.

Excellent performances all round, but ..... Shareeka Epps, Ryan Gosling and Anthony Mackie are all brilliant in their roles. The characters didn't do what I expect them to, and by that I mean that they behaved in a way that real, unpredicatble, and complicated human beings do, rather than in the way that hollywood has taught us to expect characters to act. It wasn't predicable and formulaic. However, I am only giving 2.5 stars because I couldn't maintain any sympathy or continue to care about our main character Danny (Ryan Gosling) for the second half of the film, after he sexual assaults a woman he had been casually seeing. When she punches him and locks herself in her room he whines though the door to her that he forgives her and has no hard feelings. What the fuck. Perhaps it is realisitic and perhaps we are not meant to feel any compassion for Danny beyond this point but he never gets punished or shows any remorse for the behaviour, in fact we never see or hear from the woman again. So it feel more like its a bit of casual sexual violence that we aren't meant to put too much thought into. Disappointing.

Ryan Gosling was very believable as a teacher that connected with kids, especially a young female student who could turn easily to the streets or find a better life for herself. Although Gosling is a heavy drug user he is protective of the girl.

great performance by ryan gosling i liked this film alot. it deals with drugs and effects and is a good character study see this movie.

I like the concept of this film - somewhat of a role reversal, with the white teacher being in a not great lifestyle situation and looking to the students he teaches, from the projects, for help or motivation (rather than it being the blonde white bombshell coming in to teach the inner city kids out of poverty or whatever). Ryan Reynolds gives a fairly decent performance and it seems pretty believable, even if there are some plot holes. It doesn't entirely work but its a pretty good attempt at an interesting story. There's some fairly shaky camerawork at times that might irritate you a bit and its not perfect but its ok, so I'd maybe cautiously recommend this film, yes.

Not often are movies so consistently enjoyable while also being consistently heartbreaking. Half Nelson is warm, caring, and an absolute gut punch. It deftly displays 2 characters from deeply different paths of life intersecting at a moment that can make or break either of them. I'm not sure there are many scenes I can point to in movies that are so devastating as a couple of those in Half Nelson. While this may sound like a total bummer, the directors smartly choose to show a sliver of the hopeful destination without suggesting that Dunn is magically clean or that Drey is completely rid of Frank, etc. Lastly, music plays a central role in how impactful the movie is. The score by Broken Social Scene perfectly (and I really mean perfectly without hyperbole) captures the spirit and weightiness of the film creating many moments that gave me chills and made me tear up. Half Nelson is an incredible use of the entire medium of film creation and I really love it.