HALF NELSON rambling

Finally got around to seeing HALF NELSON Saturday night, and with a cool posse—my sister, Rowan, Heather, and Patricia. Not the feel good hit of the fall, but a damn good movie with some gifted performances that'll take you on a helluva safari through the grey areas. I was very glad to have the company, I must say. I'd been wanting to see it since it premiered opening night at the IFFB those many moons ago, but since it recently opened in wide/indie release, I hadn't been able to drum up any partners to hit it, and with it playing at the Kendall and the Kendall's scheduling being what it is, it was getting to the point where I was gonna have to see it on my own.

Wow, that would've been rough.

"Get some SHEETS, man!" Heh.

Ryan Gosling as Dan Dunne, aka "Teach," and Shareeka Epps as his eighth grade student, Drey, are Always On in this movie. Real and focused (or totallly fried and tweaked, if that's what's called for) and living and breathing their roles. Epps is just AWEsome. She's not just an old soul, but an old soul who's seen some Serious $hit. I'm looking forward to her future work. Hopefully she'll be able to dodge any truly schlocky teen flicks on her way to her first film by the Coen Brothers or the SCIENCE OF SLEEP's Gondry or maybe the director of LITTLE CHILDREN and IN THE BEDROOM.

Random, but, like, five seconds into the trailer for LITTLE CHILDREN, I just *knew* I was looking at the next film by Todd Field. I only saw IN THE BEDROOM once, and very much appreciated the performances given for these agonized characters in their tragic situation, but I would never have thought that I'd be able to recognize a style or texture to the guy's work, the way I could instantly read Michael Mann-ness in the first seconds of the MIAMI VICE trailer...

I've only seen Gosling in a few things besides YOUNG HERCULES, heh. And he's been solid, with hints of real goodness. What you see in HALF NELSON is *damn* impressive, tho. Way above and beyond THE NOTEBOOK (and POO BY NUMBERS! ha =). After seeing this, I'm finding myself casting him as the undercover cop in a parallel universe's DEPARTED.

Not that Leo won't do the role justice, but maybe just so that I won't hafta look at those Damon and DiCaprio heads in the same film...? Heh. No, I'm really looking forward to the Scorscese take on Hong Kong's INFERNAL AFFAIRS (which I first saw at the Boston Fantastic Film Festival at the Brattle—the fourth one is coming soon!). The only weakness I'm sort of anticipating out of the top notch cast is actually Nicholson. I'm not sure about him as a Boston Irish crime boss. Well, hopefully he'll blow away those doubts this coming weekend. THE DEPARTED - See it!

Back to HALF NELSON...

Mr. Dunne is a great motivator in the classroom. He puts aside a binder of standard lesson plans on the civil rights movement and attacks the subject sideways, introducing his students to the subject in a dialectical manner, questioning them about motivations, philosophies, society as a machine, and the idea of history being all about change.

Pretty heavy $hit for frickin eighth grade, no? But the way he delivers it, the kids eat it up.

He also coaches the girls' basketball team, and after a game one evening, one of his students and players, Drey, wandering the gym while waiting for a ride, discovers him in the locker room, in... pretty bad shape. She helps him out as patiently and as best as she is able, and he gives her a ride home. What does "pretty bad shape" mean? Well, I'll just say that the next day, in the faculty lounge, the teachers are gossipping about a crack vial discovered in the locker room.

There's no moral high ground for anyone to hold here. There's just this man, this teacher, and this student, an already world-weary 13 year old girl, reaching out to one another to help each other out of seemingly impossible situations, and in that reaching, get help for themselves. They see in each other what the person can be and want to protect him or her so that he or she can be that.

Does that make sense?

He sees her situation. That she's a latchkey kid in a rough neighborhood, and he feels okay, right, even, about offering to drive her home from school to make sure she arrives safely. And when she asks him for that ride later, he feels like she understands that he's helping her, and he gets confirmation that he's doing the Right Thing.

Or, on the other hand, is it that she Has Something On Him? Is he acting out of genuine concern and altruism, or because it's in his best interest to protect her and help her because then she has no reason to turn on him...? You might see how the term "user" applies to so much more than a drug. You may not think you have to wonder, but when you see how he treats others in his life, friends, colleagues, family, I think you may. I think that's a choice you make as the viewer, as the reader. Me, I was WITH him almost all the way through the movie, and always believed Drey to be acting out of genuine curiosity and concern when it came to Dunne. Only after the fact, away from the live influence of Gosling's performance/Dunne's character and his dynamic maverick manner, did I even consider the flip side.

It's always an eye-opening experience to find yourself identifying with and rooting for the guy who can do so much wrong.

There's also all of Life going on around them. That change that Dunne talks about when he's teaching history, it's happening all the time, on a personal scale, and the film lets it in, the neighborhoods, the families, the peers, their treatment of our Dunne and Drey, and they help bring their characters, their strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs, into sharper relief. Dunne's a child of children of the 60s. You can see their effect on him in the books on his shelves (the titles and authors prompt a fellow teacher to ask if he's a Communist). In an exchange with his mother, he praises her generation for having to courage to stop a war. Looking back, bleary and blotto eyed, she seems to see it differently... a generation later, and where did it get them? It's just after this that a very painful moment in the movie punches you in the heart...

I think Heather picked this out after the movie as a, well, "turning point" in the film... although, I don't know that that's quite the phrase we should use, as there's not much turning involved, besides the "away" kind...

*SPOILERISH* powerful harsh little moment from the film...

Dan and his mother are in the kitchen at the parents' place. This is some kind of semi-regular dinner and get-together for the family, and weighty glasses of liquor are always within arm's reach of all involved. They're playing small talk catch-up while mom's putting dishes in the sink or something, and she turns to her son to ask him if he's happy. He gives her a b.s. smile and a matching answer, and she takes it in stride, pleased to hear him cheerful, even if it's not the truth. A second later, she's taking a drink. A second after that, Dan calls to her, "Mom..." And she doesn't seem to hear him...

*END SPOILER*

The teaching segments are pretty inspired. There's one lesson in particular that seems to resonate with the themes of the film. They all do, actually, but this one, along w the "machine" one, really takes it home.

*SPOILERISH* description of a scene/lesson not featured in the trailer...

Dunne is pretty near bottom at this point, but he's still just barely holding it together in the classroom for the kids, his saving grace, so he believes. And he's put together a lesson on the philosophies of the East, and how they embrace the notion of the world, the cosmos, being composed of opposites, and that any thing, and person, any entity, could be one AND the other at any time. That a tree can be both crooked and straight, for instance. Physics loves this sort of thing, as it is perfectly in sync with the dual behavior of light, as both a particle and a wave.

Okay, that's not in the movie, but just came to the armchair nerdly surface as I was writing.

Anyhow, Dunne goes on to explain how the West would have none of that. That all things in the universe are creations of God, and thusly, must be perfect, and a perfect thing cannot be both whole and broken, cannot be more than one thing at a time, or it is by definition, imperfect. Of course, the only exception to this rule is human beings. They get to be all kinds of things that make them imperfect, sinners, and all that they can do is try to live a good life.

*END SPOILER*

Pretty heavy poop for eighth grade, no? Regardless, an excellent lesson for all. I wonder where in the story's writer's life these lesson plans came from.

*SPOILERISH* wondering out loud...

What happened when Teach and Frank sat down for a drink at Frank's place? Did Frank "buy" his "cooperation?" It was after that encounter that Mr. Dunne tries to distance himself from Drey, right? When she approaches him in his car at the school, and he points out, "You don't see other kids coming up to their teachers' cars, do you?" And the exchange finishes wonderfully. When a kid tells an adult he's a bad word, it's really Something. When an adult says it to a kid, it's kind of laughable. Well, especially when he says it when the kid is walking away and no one hears him, heh.

*END SPOILER*

There was one particular scene that caused some sustained goosebumpery, but I can't quite pinpoint-recall it. There were actually a lot of key turning points and realizations in those two hours for a movie with a pretty tight cast of characters.

There was a surprising moviegoer moment for me, too. Sort of a backhanded testament to how well the movie sucked me in.

*SPOILER* description of a scene near the end of the movie...

It happens near the end of the sequence with all the cutting between Gosling/Dunne doing that quality time with his family (and then looking to party/escape/score afterward), and Epps/Drey "going to work" with Frank. When Drey, playing delivery girl, is sent to that motel room... I'm not sure what the exact clue or cue is, but we just KNOW it's Dunne in that motel room, and Drey is there to deliver to him.

See, in my head, I think that that moment is almost a no-brainer when you look at the setup for the film. Gifted maverick teacher Dunne adopts Drey, an enigma of a student, as a part-time personal project and friend. Drey is in a situation where drug dealer Frank is supposedly looking out for her, in an uncle/mentor-of-the-streets sort of way. She *is* smart enough to recognize trouble, but still, she is young, and wants things, and growing up in an environment where nothing comes easy.

Outside the classroom, Teach is a user (but has it "under control"), and knows Frank as an associate of his own dealer. While Teach fights a losing battle against his demons, he tries to keep his student from being tainted by them, and even by himself. But the dealer has influence and home court advantage on several levels, and uses them to draw Drey into the business...

So, how would you answer if someone gave you that set-up for an unfolding story, and asked you—what should happen next? It doesn't take TOO much thought to connect the dots and figure out that it all points to Drey and Teach ending up face-to-face in a drug deal, just as the movie shows. The amazing thing is that the filmmaking and the performances and the roles are so perfect that you don't anticipate that while you're watching. You don't even think about it until she's at the door.

Well, I didn't, at least. =)

The movie dips grey into the grey in one exchange between Drey and Frank when they're talking about Teach, and Frank, the drug dealer, sees something unusual and unwise in trying to build a relationship that goes beyond student-teacher with Mr. Dunne. Whether Frank is motivated by genuine concern for the well-being of his adopted niece, or maintaining the allegiance of an underage drug courier in training, the man does have a point.

How does it end? Hopeful? Perhaps. I think you'll at least crack a smile. Given the badness and sadness that goes down in the previous two hours, that's pretty frickin masterful. A definition of bittersweet. Also, a demonstration of the power of a good knock-knock joke... poorly delivered. Heh.

(If you get a chance, ask me about the best knock-knock joke I ever heard.)

I remember the closing shot is of Dunne and Drey sitting down to watch some TV in Dunne's apartment. They're on opposite ends of the couch, facing the TV (which may or may not have been on, with a very low volume), and looking forward, past the camera, which seems to be on top of the TV pointed at the middle of the couch.

Seeing this, the two of them together and quiet, I was reminded of a song by the Mountain Goats, "No Children." It's a guy singing to and about his partner, and how everything about their relationship is $hit and he hopes it all ends soon, but what's important is that they're together when it all goes kablooey...

I hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us. I hope we come out with a fail-safe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us. I hope the fences we mended fall down beneath their own weight. And I hope we hang on past the last exit, I hope it's already too late. And I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here someday burns down. And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away, and I never come back to this town again. In my life, I hope I lie, and tell everyone you were a good wife. And I hope you die, I hope we both die. I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow; I hope it bleeds all day long. Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises; we're pretty sure they're all wrong. I hope it stays dark forever, I hope the worst isn't over. And I hope you blink before I do, and I hope I never get sober. And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can't find one good thing to say. And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way. I am drowning. There is no sign of land. You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand. And I hope you die, I hope we both die.

He's singing the unspoken thoughts in a relationship built on lies and omissions and codependency.

Hey, but it's a relationship, right?

*END SPOILER*

You, go see it. Me, I go sleep now.

Keep on keepin on~