Half Nelson (film)

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Half Nelson
Directed by Ryan Fleck
Produced by Anna Boden
Lynette Howell
Rosanne Korenberg
Alex Orlovsky
Jamie Patricof
Written by Anna Boden
Ryan Fleck
Starring Ryan Gosling
Shareeka Epps
Anthony Mackie
Music by Broken Social Scene
Distributed by ThinkFilm
Release date(s) August 11, 2006
Running time 106 min.
Country United States Flag of the United States
Language English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Half Nelson is an Academy Award-nominated American film which premiered in competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, and was released theatrically on August 11, 2006. It is written by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, stars Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps and Anthony Mackie and is directed by Ryan Fleck. The film was scored by Juno-Award-winning Canadian band Broken Social Scene.

The story concerns an inner-city junior high school teacher who forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students after she discovers that he has a drug habit. The film is based on a 19-minute film made by Boden and Fleck in 2004, titled Gowanus, Brooklyn. [1]

Half Nelson was screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival on April 1, 2006. Director Ryan Fleck and actress Shareeka Epps attended the screening and answered questions from the audience.

Contents

An inner-city teacher struggling with addiction forms an unlikely bond with a young student who catches him in a compromising position in director Ryan Fleck's feature-length adaptation of his own award-winning short film Gowanus, Brooklyn. Despite his dedication to the junior-high students who fill his classroom, idealistic teacher Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) leads a secret life that the majority of his students will never know. When Dunne's drug-soaked nightlife begins to bleed over into his daytime hours and troubled student Drey (Shareeka Epps) makes a startling discovery, the tenuous bond that forms between the pair soon leads to a warm friendship that could either lead them down a dangerous path or provide the human companionship needed to see things from a fresh perspective and start life anew.

The film was greeted with high critical acclaim, found its way on many top ten films of 2006 lists and even calculated an overall average of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic.

On the television show Ebert & Roeper that aired during the weekend of August 13, 2006, Richard Roeper and guest critic Kevin Smith gave Half Nelson a "two big thumbs up" rating. Smith went so far as to say that it was probably one of the ten best films he had seen in the last decade. [2] Jim Emerson, editor of Roger Ebert.com gave the movie four stars out of four. [3]

Entertainment Weekly film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum awarded the film with an A and stated in her review for the film, "Half Nelson offers an opportunity to marvel, once again, at the dazzling talent of Ryan Gosling for playing young men as believable as they are psychologically trip-wired."[4]

LA Weekly critic Scott Foundas wrote, "At a time when most American movies, studio made or "independent," seem ever more divorced from anything approximating actual life experience, Half Nelson is so sobering and searingly truthful that watching it feels like being tossed from a calm beach into a raging current."[5]

Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan gave the film an enthusiastic response stating in his review, "What is different about Half Nelson is the execution, the kind of subtlety in writing, directing and acting (by costars Shareeka Epps and Anthony Mackie as well as Gosling) you seldom see."[6]

Critics appreciated the mere fact that the film was true to human nature. Notably, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote that "a dedicated, charismatic, crack-addicted history teacher is the most believable protagonist in an American movie this year."[7]

Half Nelson was released on DVD on February 13, 2007 courtesy of ThinkFilm and Sony Pictures.

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0392061/
  2. ^ http://tvplex.go.com/buenavista/ebertandroeper/060814.html
  3. ^ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060914/REVIEWS/609140302/1023
  4. ^ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1224620,00.html
  5. ^ http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/film/opposites-attract/14322/
  6. ^ http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-et-nelson25aug25,0,3397379.story
  7. ^ http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/060915/

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