Half Nelson
| Year: | 2007 |
| Production Co: | Hunting Lane Films |
| Director: | Ryan Fleck |
| Producer: | Anna Bowden |
| Writer: | Ryan Fleck/Anna Bowden |
| Cast: | Ryan Gosling, Sharika Epps |
Unfortunately another one that had critics all over the world fawning all over it for six months, leaving me to wonder what all the fuss was about.
Yes Gosling was great, as was Sharika Epps, but I'm starting to feel like if you've seen one more 'struggling teacher and disadvantaged student touch each other's lives' or 'grungy, doco-style drug movie', you've seen them all.
Gosling is an idealistic young teacher with a crack habit and a dream of getting through to his young history class and making a difference in the world. When student Drey (Epps) finds him high on the girl's locker room floor, it starts what everyone's calling a 'friendship' but which never feels quite warm or realised enough.
And it might just be me, but in this day and age when a male teacher isn't even allowed in a room alone with a female student, the many sequences of him driving her home from school made the whole thing feel like carefully contrived fantasy.
A slow, dreary critic's movie.
Yes Gosling was great, as was Sharika Epps, but I'm starting to feel like if you've seen one more 'struggling teacher and disadvantaged student touch each other's lives' or 'grungy, doco-style drug movie', you've seen them all.
Gosling is an idealistic young teacher with a crack habit and a dream of getting through to his young history class and making a difference in the world. When student Drey (Epps) finds him high on the girl's locker room floor, it starts what everyone's calling a 'friendship' but which never feels quite warm or realised enough.
And it might just be me, but in this day and age when a male teacher isn't even allowed in a room alone with a female student, the many sequences of him driving her home from school made the whole thing feel like carefully contrived fantasy.
A slow, dreary critic's movie.