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.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Half Nelson is an 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-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.

On the Ebert & Roeper show that aired during the weekend of August 13th, 2006, Richard Roeper and guest critic Kevin Smith gave Half Nelson two big thumbs up. 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]

In November 2006 the movie was nominated for several Spirit Awards (formerly known as the Independent Spirit Awards) including best picture, best actor and best actress. Additionally, Ryan Gosling won best actor at the Stockholm Film Festival and at the New York based Gotham Awards.

The teacher's curriculum is borrowed heavily (with citation in the film's credits) from a website advocating the teaching of dialectics in elementary schools. That this idea, some argue, originated in the writings of Hegel and Engels explains the teacher's fear of being labeled a communist. The concept of dialectics is said to be threatening to existing power structures and is thus not taught in public schools. Much of the teacher's monologues references the website's examples of oppossed opposites, as well as the concept that change occurs spirally. [4]