Half-Nelson

I had kept reading things about Ryan Gosling's acting for this movie, so naturally I was a bit skeptical going into this free screening. Ok the skepticism came not just from having read about his acting but because a friend of mine would watch him on the syndicated tv show "young hercules" years ago and would not shut up about how hot she thought he was. And then he did "The Notebook" which didn't help - so all in all, not the most auspious beginning for a "Serious Actor."

But then I remembered his performance in "The United State of Leland" and seeing him in "Half-Nelson" made me question my previous skepticism. "Half-Nelson" is not big on major story or plot, instead it is a quiet character study of one drug addicted man teaching at an inner-city (a term which I always translated into meaning 'ghetto' kids) school and the unlikely friendship he develops with one of his students.

The actress who plays the student Drey, Shareeka Epps blew me away with her ability to show the complexity of what it is like to grow up in a world where there are no heroes, no one to rely on and practically no hope of escaping the many trappings of poverty. Drey has a brother in prison, a mother who can barely be home because of work and no father to speak of. There is a local dealer, Frank whose relationship to Drey and her brother is never clearly explained (is he related to them? or is Frank just feeling obligated because Drey's brother hasn't ratted him out to the police yet?) but the clear struggle Drey has in trying to navigate between her drug-addicted teacher and Frank is heart-wrenching.

Unfortunately, most of the kids in Drey's situation aren't this thoughtful or as obviously emotionally complex. Anyone who has met a group of these kids know that they learn early on to never display such raw honesty - the kids tend to be loud, crass and obnoxious, showing little manners or ability to think beyond their immediate wants and needs. I've seen kids as young as 6 or 7 with behaviour so throughly heinous that its no wonder society has given up on them. The ironic thing is that these kids are very much like many of the vacuous, superficial kids that come out of the suburbs, with the difference being money and access to good education systems. The suburban kids are completely spoiled and can be just as loud, crass and obnoxious as any 'ghetto' kid, they just choose to be that way in places that require money instead of on public transportation.

Thinking back, part of that duality between the suburban life and the 'ghetto' life is shown in the movie through Ryan Gosling's character Dan Dunne, and Shareeka Epps' character, Drey. Dan, despite being a product of a "stable" home with education and money, still acts like a jerk, with Drey, trying to survive her loud, crass and obnoxious environment.

"Half-Nelson" is definitely an interesting film and the acting between Shareeka Epps and Ryan Gosling is not to be missed. See this is you enjoy watching complex characters try and exist in a complex world.

Bullrider

Trust the Man

The movie has some funny moments and one-liners, but afterwards you feel cheated because the exploration of the characters and the relationships that they are involved in - romantic and platonic - end up being nothing more than cliches with predictable endings.

The married couple is Tom (played by David Duchovny), the stay-at-home husband of actress Rebecca (Julianne Moore). Tom begins cheating on Rebecca with a woman whose children attend the same school as his own children. At first the justification seems to be that Tom just wants sex and does not seem to be getting it as frequently or as "creatively" as he used to with Rebecca. The eventual truth that he is frustrated as a stay-at-home dad that is using sex and his affair as a way of expressing his feelings of emasculation and uselessness is sadly obvious from the beginning, without the deeper explorations of guilt and denial that might have helped add more depth to the character of Tom. The fact that the movie is written and directed by Julianne Moore's husband, Bart Freundlich, made me wonder after the movie whether it was even remotely autobiographical or not...for Julianne Moore's sake, I hope not!

The othere couple is Rebecca's brother, Tobey (Billy Crudup) and his girlfriend of seven (!) years, Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who are obviously there as a compare-and-contrast couple as well as providing same-gender friends for when the predictable complications arise. Elaine is an aspiring children's book author who admits to Rebecca early on in the movie that she wants to be married and have kids. This naturally leads to the confrontation with Tobey because he does not want children. Maggie Gyllenhaal, whom I have adored since seeing her in Secretary, gives the character of Elaine as much complexity as she is able, but with the restrictions of predictability, the complexity manages to manifest in dialogue such as the lines spoken in the arguement during the dinner party scene. Tobey is attempting to try and win Elaine back after she has dumped him, with the arguement behind closed doors naturally being heard by everyone, including the new boyfriend. Tobey mocks the new boyfriend by calling him a "sprocket," to which Elaine counters that he may be a sprocket but he is one with a huge c*ck (this pronouncement elicits a silent Tom to raise his glass in deference to the "Sprocket"). Billly Crudup's Tobey comes off as a sterotypical quasi-slacker that is more interested in finding out about his therapist's personal life then he is in trying to deal with his own issues. The quirk that is supposed to project uniqueness, comes from the running joke that he is obsessed with the idea of dying. The inevitability of his death is his excuse for not marrying Elaine and when called on it, spends the rest of the movie working through the issue until he resolves it in a formulatic manner.

Don't get me wrong, I did laugh and enjoy myself while I watched the movie. But the movie never truly breaks new ground nor give a fresh take on the old ground, so forgetable in fact, that I had to resort to the official web site to remind me of a movie I had just finished viewing three hours ago....never a good sign. This is a movie that I'm glad I got a movie pass for because it definitely is not a movie you want to pay to see.

World Trade Center

The Illusionist