Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Half Nelson

HALF NELSON (2006) - June 24, 2009
A basically well made but meandering and really slow paced film about an inner-city teacher with a drug problem, and his relationship with one of the students in his class. The film is directed with a gritty, shaky-cam, documentary-like visual style which isn't the best ever, though it gets the job done (I'm generally not a fan of the faux-documentary visual style, and this certainly hasn't changed my mind, though the style does essentially fit the tone of the film). What really saves this movie are the two central performances -- Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps are both so good that it almost makes you forget the film's shortcomings. **1/2

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