Now that the fall TV season (and the fall theatrical season) is underway, my film consumption is probably going to decrease dramatically for a while...at least until reruns and down times. I've officially been a Netflix member for a year, though, and love it to pieces and so my weekly movie should still be in tact. The AFI Project might slow to a crawl, but that's ok. I need to catch up on more recent films, especially since Oscar season is right around the corner (woo hoo!).
Of course, I'm still catching up on Oscar seasons past. Hence my Netflix movie of the week: Half Nelson. This film only came under my radar because Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Actor for his role in this film. He didn't win, but no matter - I like to watch these films, where a performance or two may have been nominated even if the film itself was not, to see if I can see what the Academy saw at the time. Gosling's performance was good - even great. Unfortunately, the film he put so much heart and soul into was not.
Half Nelson tells the story of teacher Dan Dunne (Gosling), who nurtures a neo-hippie idealism in his history courses peopled by middle school students and a cool dorkyness while coaching the girls' basketball team. The trouble is that he's nursing a steady cocaine addiction. When his night life begins to overtake his day job, and he's discovered using by one of his students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), the two form an awkward friendship. This friendship becomes one of mutual reliance, as Drey comes from a single-parent (mom) inner city household where her older brother has been jailed for drug dealing and her brother's friend and handler, Frank (Anthony Mackie), has set his sights on Drey to carry on the "family" business. He gives Drey money, candy, and occasional companionship, though this may arise more from a guilt obligation in lieu of her brother than anything. What is certain is that Dan and Drey need each other while together they navigate roads of self-destruction and eventual redemption.
As I said, Gosling gave a great performance. It was natural, believable, and felt oddly effortless watching him fill the shoes of what can only be described as a tortured soul: a good boy who made bad choices and seems beholden to the vicious cycle of beating himself up and then making the same choices to self-medicate. Wasn't he a former Mouseketeer - if so, this is a long way from the Mickey Mouse Club. His journey - or the snapshot of it captured by this film - is as poignant as it is because Gosling seemed to surrender himself to the role, just as an addict does to his/her addiction. He deserved his nomination.
Shareeka Epps also gave a very good performance. Whether intentional or not, her Drey balanced innocence and maturity in ways that other child actors have not managed, and she was also very natural. Once the viewer moves past the awkward bonding phase of these two people, their friendship was all the more touching because of how the two actors played their roles.
The problems with this film were kind of huge in my eyes and centered on three main points: story, resonance, and pacing. I watched this movie in two parts because it took me an hour before I remotely got into it. The story begins by offering us glimpses into Dan's life without offering any background, substantitve or otherwise. Hints and insinuations about Dan's pre-addiction self are scattered throughout the film and are offered by supporting characters that flit in and out of frame with only vague references to the past and momentary glimpses and guesses into what informed Dan's addiction. That's why it took me so long to be engaged: it took an hour to paint the portrait of the addict and his budding friendship without giving me a reason why I should care. The conversation with his ex-girlfriend, the dinner with his family, all of those scenes might better have served the story if the scenes were presented in the first half hour or so of the film. Whether it's editing, screenwriting, or both to attribute to this, I am not sure.
Drey's character was better developed; her story was told in a more linear fashion, possibly as a way to demarcate the fact that she was a child and an innocent on the brink of puberty and adulthood compared to Dan's addiction-addled state of mind. Yet, even if the film was meant only to be a snapshot of a man and young girl in trouble, looking for solace, there should be some emotional resonance that engages the viewer and suspends disbelief. This film had moments - there was a particularly fine moment when the Dan and Drey characters were at their lowest and meet in an awkward location at an awkward time - but, for the most part, this film felt flat, and even that significant moment was subdued by the two-dimensional quality of everything that came before it. The supporting performances were unconvincing, and the emotional resonance of the situation between the two characters was clouded by the lack of connection with the viewer through what parts of their stories were filmed.
In addition, and others have said it, there is a distinct flavor of the "white savior of the lost inner-city black child;" even if that cliche was tweaked and turned upside down by the drug addiction, the Frank character calls attention to it in the back half of the movie, and the viewer, or at least this one, couldn't shake the notion for the rest of the film. Even if this film cannot distinctly be called offensive because of how the formula was altered, it lost impact when one of the characters in the film explicitly made a statement about how Dan is coming off as "white is right," signifying that this is just another genre film a la Dangerous Minds or something with better acting, less obvious viewer manipulation, and a slight twist. Also, the random clips of incidents and struggles throughout the civil rights movement felt so out of place and only fuel my critique here.
Still, all of that wouldn't be so bad if the film was not so slow and protracted. Perhaps, the deliberately sluggish pace served the story that this particular director and screenwriter wanted to tell, but it also served to alienate me from the film on top of the fact that I had no reason to care about Dan or even Drey until much later into the film, which for me, was the second viewing occasion.
This all sounds rather scathing. It's not meant to be. I think Ryan Gosling alone is the reason to see this film, though, and it's better to have the lowest expectations possible going on. I didn't have any, but I'm just saying. I felt the movie was incomplete, which is why I'm inclined to rate it 5.5 for being between utterly mediocre and cute. I feel it is a mediocre movie, but the two performances give it something it would not otherwise have had, and I credit the actors in their roles. As for tests, this is clearly a fail. I'm not sure I ever get into these types of films to the point of wanting to actually own them, especially when they are so formulaic and contrived. Still, if Gosling had been in a better film, he might have an Oscar to his name. Maybe that's only speculation, and there's still time, I guess.