Me suis franchement barbé durant ce film...
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Negative portrayal of both NYC teachers and inner-city students
Author: amygrrl77 from United States
25 August 2006
As a NYC public school teacher and a black woman, I know not where to begin with the faults of this film. It is yet another portrayal of the great white emancipator who sacrifices himself to teach the poor colored children of the inner city. He disregards the civil rights curriculum provided him by a black principal in favor of his own agenda. In each of the teaching scenes, he is presented as the fountain of knowledge, giving the children all they need to know about the world. He discusses change with them, nay, revolution, but the students themselves are never depicted as empowered. With exception to Shareeka Epps, who is probably changed for the worse, the children are pawns in his power play to "change the world."
This brings me to the relationship between Gosling and Epps. She has but one positive black adult in her life (her, of course, overworked and underpaid single-parent mother) and yet she is most affected by a junkie, white male teacher, who adopts a "black-cent" and coaches girls' basketball. She, in essence, becomes his mammy, caring for him and nursing him even after he calls her -- a 13-yr. old -- a "bitch" and grinds on her during a school dance. The "mammy" itself makes an appearance in her drug-dealer, pseudo-big brother's home and its significance is never explained to her, perhaps because the writers themselves don't understand it. Or maybe they do, and "Half-Nelson" is their ode to it.
All in all, this film perpetuates the theory that liberal white teachers are doing children of color favors by "sacrificing their ideals" (as stated in the "Story" section of the official website) to teach in inner-city schools. It is riddled with inaccuracies about teaching in NYC, i.e. his being alone in a school; teachers are NEVER left alone in schools, particularly after school events. It also perpetuates the theory that inner-city children are surrounded by exclusively negative influences, from family members to neighbors, and are waiting for someone to step in and rescue them from themselves.
Critics who believe this film is inspirational need to examine themselves and what they really think about their relationships with and responsibilities to blacks.
17 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
i walked out, and i was not alone.
Author: richardcharlesandrews from United Kingdom
26 April 2007
All the hype surrounding this film has yet again come from the USA. All the 10/10 reviews on this site are from Americans. What is wrong with you people? How could ANYONE find this entertainment? America, STOP! making these dreadful, pointless, boring, pretentious films. There must be one American person who thought this film was a joke? I honestly thought it was a pi**-take? In fact Iam pretty sure it was. The characters were pathetic and the relationships totally unrealistic. Are we to believe a junkie could hold a job down as a teacher. Awful camera work (no its not cool and was not cool 5 years ago). Acting? What acting? Give me a break.
5 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Much ado about nothing
Author: catsklgd1 from United States
22 August 2008
I don't know what these other people are smoking (inside joke), but clearly they are not thinking straight. This movie drags on and on and on and on and....
The dialogue is sparse, and rather poorly conceived. The bright light is the little black girl who delivers a truly gritty performance. Gosling is totally wasted, and appears perplexed throughout the film. I just don't get what all the fuss is about this movie.
Much ado about nothing. I'm sick to death of films that preach to their audience about the effects of the Vietnam war, Republican politics, etc. Weak people fail, and the central character in this film is just that...weak.
This film looks interesting and it seems like it will be good. In reality it's an extremely boring film. There is no character development... You barely find anything out about the characters. As someone else mentioned what you know at the start is literally what you know at the end.
I wouldn't recommend this film because there is nothing to it. You gain nothing from watching this film. I expected something to happen but nothing did...
It's a long film which drags on and nothing happens. You would expect to see some sort of development - not with this film.
5 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Pointless downer
Author: greenskate from United States
30 December 2008
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Pointless.
If you liked Ironweed, Leaving Las Vegas, Candy, and Trainspotting, you'll love this pointless downer.
The lesson of this movie seems to be that it's all hopeless. Drug addiction will prevail and drug running will out.
If you're hoping that everything will turn out alright or something at least will improve, give this one a miss. This is one of those movies you get to the end of and feel like you're left hanging. "And the point of that wasssssssssss?"
It's just a downer.
37 out of 59 people found the following review useful:
half nelson needs t o be reexamined
Author: DjohnsonC-3 from United States
26 August 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I have been reading many reviews about this film for weeks so I was anxious to see it. I was hoping for something new.
There seems to be a very prominent but hard to overlook attraction by young, talented, new white filmmakers taking up the subjects of urban black and Latino lives as fodder for either liberal expression, societal outrage or possible fetishism. From "Maria Full of Grace", "GirlsTown", "Everyday People" (HBO), "Quinceanera" now "Half Nelson", we have story lines looking at underprivileged black and Latino folk through a prism that seems to be very similar. In these stories there is a little sadness, some anthropological observation, a fair amount of non judgmental characterizations and realism but as independent and daring as these films claimed to be, they are no better than watching "Dangerous Minds", a studio film of a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at you. Most black filmmakers seem to be preoccupied these days with the three p's-Tyler Perry, Tyrese and taking the money so it's hard to complain when other filmmakers find the stories of black and Latino culture such a rich place to be.
So here comes "Half Nelson" as the latest in this stream. I really wanted to like this one but it falls into the same unfortunate traps as the others. I'm watching this film and seeing the absent of any black adult with any speaking part with a positive image for this young girl to benefit from. Ryan Gosling is a gifted and natural artist and Epps is quite good and real but the choices the writer and director make are choices that show where they are coming from. Dan brings in the light because the lives of the kids in his class are in the dark. With Epps' mom working so much are we to believe Epps is not loved? Hard to know. Her father is not around but apparently without a voice or point of view and dogged by her mother. Her brother is in prison but he doesn't seem to be evolved enough to realize that he must do differently when he gets out. And then there's Mackie's character, a good guy but he's selling product in the community. The man's a businessman but not quite the positive role model you'd like to have any kid look up to.
The polyglot nature of our world gives us all configurations of relationships in how people find family, opportunity and friendship but I never found what Dan is going through in his addiction particularly profound or revealing. Sure he's high half the time, sure he's aimless and passionate like a lot of aimless and educated young white and black folk who don't know what to do and how to affect change in this world but when you make a movie and lay your hero in a world he knows little about, give the world a little more credit. Switch the situation around. take out the drugs and go back thirty years and you have "To Sir with Love". The only difference, Poitier's character had a chip on his shoulder not a monkey on his back and the kids he was dealing with and Lulu's character particularly didn't want to take that chip off, she wanted to learn from him. I don't know what this 13 year old learns from Dan. Maybe she's learned how to take care of a guy who needs someone to take care of him, which really sets her up for an unfortunate job title in her future. We don't know what she dreams about for her future. We have no idea. She sure has not learned much about the civil rights movement in what is shown in the film. He is trying to impress on the kids to expand their minds in a semi Socratic educational style but these kids are sponges and a point of view from a teacher is not actually teaching. I want to know the filmmaker's point in making this film. I'm really curious. That's my two cents.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
One to avoid
Author: georg-60 from United Kingdom
5 December 2011
Half Nelson is about a history teacher in an inner city NY school who is somehow ever so cool because he really engages children and all the other teachers are so hopeless that it can be no surprise that these kids are so disinterested in everything. If only we had more teachers like that. How does he do it ? Well, he makes history really interesting by talking about change, and big ideas clashing, and other hackneyed soundbites all the time but they never seem to learn any facts or events because this would be way too boring. He is also so cool that he has to walk around all day with a really bemused look on his face, you know, this look of the only sane person in a sea of fools. You also need to understand that when he is not heroically helping children, he is a drug addict and gets up to all sorts of things that are usually considered as not good for you. You will wonder how he can sustain this habit and his teaching at the same time, but I guess that this is actually the only part of the film that makes some sense because his lessons never look as if he has done any preparation for them, but that he rather makes them up as he goes along - lots of phoneyism and no substance. Now, he also gets to meet this really street wise black girl who really takes care of him although he offers her nothing much in return and there is no obvious explanation why she seems to like this idiot who is not even particularly nice to her. According to some other reviews of this film, they somehow seem to help each other but this is strange because nothing in their lives is going anywhere. If you like that sort of thing and films without plot, dialog, likable characters or anything of interest to speak of, then this film is for you, otherwise best to avoid.
6 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Pointless
Author: djdiabolikal from United States
19 December 2007
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie was completely pointless. It had no moral, no climax, no resolution, no anything. It was well acted, and I found myself interested in what would happen to the characters, only nothing does. They are really no different then they are at the start. All the classroom scenes are the same, it's like he takes 5 classes to make a simple point. Opposites, and how they push against each other to create change, is the supposed metaphor for this picture, except there is no pushing tension, and as far as I can tell nothing changes. I take that back the only thing that changes is that the teacher is unable to effect the girls life in a profound enough manner as to prevent her from becoming a drug dealer, oh wait he DIDN'T change her life. I think this movie is somehow meant to disturb us, like it's so hard to come to grips with the idea that all drug addicts aren't all black, and from the ghetto and broken homes. This movie is suppose to open you eyes to the truth that middle class white people can end up on drugs. WOW I never knew that was possible. The teacher and the girl had a good dynamic, but again there is now real suspense or tension to their relationship, there are slight hints that maybe people think the relationship is wrong, but nothing comes of it or the relationship. Every time you think something is going to get serious and the climax will come, the plot manages to just keep going in this straight boring line. I was like OK, here go when he confronted the drug dealer about the girl, but then the drug dealer, who is clearly a nice guy, offers him a drink. Probably the worst thing to me about this movie is how it seems to have a very liberal view on drugs. There is only one scene where the drugs he takes seems to have a negative impact on his life, when he goes to the other teachers house and almost rapes her, other than that the worst that happens is he talks about brainy topics to the dumb sluts he picks up at the bar. Then after all the non-suspense the movie just ends out of nowhere, probably the worst end to a movie I have ever seen. I only give this movie 2 stars because like I said, I do think the acting was pretty good.
4 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
watch out for the hand-held camera!
Author: jonnyss from United States
30 October 2006
after reading the reviews, i was eager to see this film, so i was quite disappointed when i had to walk out. after 45 minutes, mostly spent looking at my knees and peeking up occasionally, the nausea and headache became too great.
i understand that only about 30% of film-goers get seasick from hand-held cameras, but, hey, i suppose the other 70% will get a different impression of the film. some movies use a hand-held camera to follow a running character or to show the view out of a moving car. this film uses a shaky camera to watch a man sitting on a couch.
in addition the audio was rather difficult to understand in places, so when i was looking at my knees, i could not understand all the dialogue. sorry! i hear it's a good film if you're able to watch it.
11 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Biggest Let Down of the Year
Author: Hint523 from USA
16 May 2007
Like The New World last year, this movie was the biggest let down of the year. Here's why:
First of all, the premise was intriguing, and I wanted to see this movie really badly. While watching it, I kept saying that it would get better soon, that the premise was still building. But as the clock ticked, nothing was happening. It's about a guy who's a teacher that snorts as well, and what he does. However, he just hangs around, and doesn't do anything. At the end a bit of a resolution happens, but it isn't really anything. While Shareeka Epps, the young actress in the film, looks like she has potential, she is given few lines and all she does is WATCH her teacher get worse and ask him to stop futilely.
Finally it ended and I knew I didn't enjoy. Then it took me a second: what is the title about? Nobody is named Nelson, nobody gets put in a Half Nelson, and it seems off. People claim it is a metaphor for the character's situation, which in my opinion makes no sense because all his problems are self inflicted. That doesn't make sense.
Skip this one, it's a let down, and a movie that didn't need to be made.
