Half Nelson  is a film directed by Ryan Flack. It stars Ryan Gosling as Dan Dunne a history teacher in a junior high in Brooklyn who while battling a drug problem attempts to help a 13 year old girl in his class named Drey. In the following paragraphs, I am going to analyze the film, explore how it differs from more main stream films that depict school settings, and discuss how it can be related to aspects of American culture today that are not usually shown in mainstream movies.

            When we are young students, it is hard to think of our teachers as normal human beings. They are teachers and in most cases that is what we think their entire life revolves around. Many mainstream movies and other media usually reinforce that image into people’s consciousness.  Half Nelson does not take this approach. We get an early scene showing Dan striving to get children interested in history in the classroom followed by him coaching girls basketball. This set up gives the impression that Dan’s character may be like others we have seen in movies like Lean On Me, Dangerous Minds, or To Sir With Love Two that might have character flaws, but are some sort of morally strong super human type of teacher that can inspire students in a rough neighborhood and devotes the vast portion of their life to that pursuit. However, in this film, the early scenes of him in the classroom and basketball court are intercut with scenes of him purchasing drugs and hitting on women at clubs. The dichotomy between the heroic teacher and the flawed man with actual human urges is different then most card board teacher characters in main stream films.

            One of the most primary human urges is sex. The way Half Nelson treats sex for teachers is different then most mainstream films I have seen. Furthermore, there is not an attempt to romanticize sex. In fact, one of the most powerful scenes in the films is one of a borderline sexual assault. Earlier in the film, Dan has successfully pursued a sexual relationship with one of his coworkers. Later in the film, while high, he comes to her house one night. Part of the scene the camera is focused on a mirror so he are getting an indirect view of the characters. Then, we get a shot where we both see the characters and also get to see their reflections in the large mirror behind them. In almost gives the impression that there are four people in the scene and not two. I believe that this is done deliberately. In some sense, both of these characters lead two lives. One is the life of a teacher and the other the life of a normal human being. By having the mirror in the scene it gives a visual representation to the fact that there is more then one side to these people. As the scene progresses, Dan tries to force himself on top of his coworker and at one point we get a close up of him attempting to hold her arm down. Most people today would look at these actions as the start of a sexual assault. This is an example where the movie shows extreme flaws in Dan character and the lack of judgment which his drug problem has led to which is atypical of the smaller character flaws we might see in a teacher in a more main stream film.

            The heart of this movie is the relationship between Dan who is a man in his 20s most likely and a thirteen year old girl. With this type of relationship in most movies it usually goes two ways. Either the man is some sort of pervert and wants a sexual relationship with the girl, or he is some sort of father figure or mentor like in the movie Akeelah and the Bee which has the young female student with older male mentor dynamic. In those type of movies, the potential ways that society might look at the relationship between an older man and a younger girl as suspicious is usually never touched up, but Half Nelson does. We seen Dan appearing to be a chaperon at a dance when he starts doing a silly attempt at a hip hop dance movie while smiling at Drey who smiles back. This could be looked at as almost flirting. As the scene progresses, we first see Dan and Drey dancing with Dan spinning her around at a distance. This is the type of dancing that we might usually associate with a father and daughter. Then the camera zooms closer as Dan and Drey start dancing closer together in a borderline “grinding” dance style which most would associate with young couple dancing. We then get shots of other students faces as they are witnessing this we looks on their face of borderline confusion that seem to acknowledge that what they are doing is borderline crossing a line.

            In the previous paragraph, I pointed out close up shots of the other students faces. This movie overall seems to have an obsession with close up shots of people’s faces. Early in the movie, Dan’s character sees an ex girlfriend who has just got out rehab after a basketball game. During that scene we get constant alternating over the shoulder shots of the other persons face. During the conversation, Dan at a few points hides part of his face behind a wall. This could be symbolic of him being intimidated by seeing his ex who is cleaned up after rehab while he is still using or maybe of him trying to hide something from her.

            In the following scene we see Dan head into a bathroom stall in the girl’s lockeroom. Here again we get a long shot of his face as he is using drugs. His is constantly opening and closing is eyes and there is sweat on his forehead. When he hears someone else in the bathroom, he closes his eyes in a manner that reminded me of a toddler who believe that if they close their eyes that what ever is scaring them will no longer be really there. When Drey discovers him, again we get alternating close ups of their faces reaction shots and the angles seem to show Dan looking up at Drey and Drey down at Dan. In some sense this parallels the rest of the movie. While it is Dan who later wants to help Drey stay away from the fate of her older brothers involvement in drugs, in most cases it is Drey who is helping Dan and offering him advices on a wide range of topics including his love life.

            In the lockeroom scene, Drey literally has to help Dan get out of the stall. As she is doing this camera goes blurry for a second which seems to coincide with Dan’s high on drugs state at the time. We then camera gets refocused we see a shot of graffiti that reads “I Hate You” on the bathroom stall’s door which Dan sees and touches with his hand. At this moment being so low where he has to be helped by one of the students he is supposed to be helping and having disappointed himself and his student by ruining the teacher template that most students have by using drugs, Dan most likely hates himself. In a way the graffiti on the wall seems to symbolize this message to himself and that is why I believe the director made sure it was on their and Gosling touches it and draws attention to the words.

            There are countless examples of differences in this movie and other more mainstream Hollywood films. I am going to briefly touch upon some of them. In many more main stream movies such as To Sir With Love Two or even films like Grease , teenagers are played by actors who are comically too old for their roles and usually look about 30. In Half Nelson all the actors portraying the students appear to be about the age they should be. [1] Other times the dialogue makes subtle references without going out their way to really trying to explain what they mean. For example, in a scene where Drey is visiting her older brother who is in jail presumably for selling drugs, her brother says “don’t worry, I am gonna get out of here, we got Russell Simmons on the case.” Russell Simmons is the founder of Def Jam which is the most influence hip hop label of all time and around the time the movie was shot he was becoming more and more of a political activist especially in trying to repeal the Nelson Rockefeller Drug laws which Simmons believed are designed in a way that hurt inner city youth a lot more then more upper class youth. Another stylistic choice which we would most likely not see in a mainstream movies is the intercuts of actual historic footage when the students are discussing a historical turning point. One of those scenes of historic footage includes one of Nelson Rockefeller.

             That leads us to our final difference between a more mainstream movie that I will discuss, The Title. Most movies have pretty direct titles that lets you know what it is about. The term half nelson, I know to be a wrestling move. I could not figure out initially why they would name the movie that. After watching it, I believe the title is a play off of Nelson Rockefeller’s name and the fact that the Wrestling movie is one designed to kinda trap your opponent just in the same way that a life of poverty and overzealous drug laws could be used to trap someone.