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Writers - Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden

Director of photography - Andrij Parekh

Editor - Anna Boden

Music by Broken Social Scene

Production designer - Elizabeth Mickle

Producers - Jamie Patricof, Alex Orlovsky, Lynette Howell, Anna Boden and Rosanne Korenberg

ThinkFilm. 107 minutes. Rated R for portrayals of drug use and foul language.

STARRING: Ryan Gosling (Dan Dunne), Shareeka Epps (Drey), Anthony Mackie (Frank), Monique Gabriela Curnen (Isabel), Karen Chilton (Karen) and Tina Holmes (Rachel).

In wrestling, the half nelson is a position in which the body is pulled back as the hand pushes forward to pin the opponent down. It is a position of tension, opposing forces, and for all parties involved, not a very comfortable state to be in.

The film, Half Nelson, directed by newcomer Ryan Fleck, is also about opposing forces — "dialectics," as labeled in the oft-stated theory by the film's protagonist, junior high history teacher Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling). Taking numerous pages from Hegel and Marx, Dunne wants his class of inner city 8^th graders to remember one thing about history: it is all about opposites — two sides pushing against one another, tension, struggle, class warfare.

This idea is represented in the central relationship of the film — that of Dunne and his young student, Drey (newcomer Shareeka Epps). Drey is a thirteen year-old African American girl with a single mom, absentee dad, brother in jail and friends who are drug dealers. "Teach" (as Drey calls Dunne) is a twenty-something white guy from a rich family. They are black/white, good/bad, student/teacher, and yet they form an unlikely friendship based on a shared secret that involves their primary point of connection: drugs.   Drey's life is defined by the drug culture just because she was born into it (and implicitly because drug money puts food on her table). Dunne's life is defined by drugs because he's hopelessly addicted.

Both of them are lonely, isolated souls, and their dialectical relationship pushes and pulls them in and out of dark places, and ultimately toward the light of change. Their relationship — quietly portrayed with unsteady camerawork, blurry close-ups and very little dialogue — gives the ragged film a bit of a soft heart. Indeed, the mood of the picture — carried by the ambient soundtrack by Broken Social Scene — has the same sort of delicate timbre as Lost in Translation, which also dealt with the dialectic space between two would-be divergent souls. It also recalls the films Finding Forrester and George Washington; the former because of the "white elder bonds with black youth" content, and the latter because of the woozy, drifting aesthetic of a particularly rundown neighborhood of America.

Half Nelson is a small and sad little film, but a deeply profound character study of a unique man who both attracts and repels us. Ryan Gosling is a long way from The Notebook here, but his character is utterly believable: a privileged, liberal white kid whose idealism and cynicism about things like politics and social welfare constantly collide in an existential whirlwind that drives him to drinking, drugs, and other dodgy habits. He's a street-smart, unshaven hipster who lives in a dingy apartment alone, apart from a cat and bookshelves full of Malcolm X and Che Guevera.

To the outside viewer, Dunne is not a happy person. He can't keep a girlfriend, hates his family, and when he gets a crack fix in the empty girls locker room after a basketball game (he's the girls' basketball coach), it's not nearly his rock bottom. And yet one suspects that Dunne is somewhat satisfied in his misery.  After all, what is life if not a constant struggle?

One thing can be said for Dunne: he certainly practices what he preaches. His doctrine of dialectics is personified in his own life. Dunne seems okay with the fact that he is simultaneously part of the problem (his money feeds the drug economy) and the solution (helping to educate kids and get them off of the streets) of the world he is trying to better.  He's in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance, but it's resonance to him. 

Dunne is taken with Hegel's idea that "genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights." He desperately wants to believe that things aren't black and white, that "wrong" is a relative term and that all things in nature can be both ugly and beautiful. It is a poignant moment when Dunne admits that while Christians fail to see the "ugly/beautiful" duplicity in most of life, they do see it in the nature of man: "we are sinners," Dunne laments, "but we can strive to be good."

Of course, it is the "striving to be good" part that Dunne has a problem with.  His dialectical dream would be that "good" and "sinner" can be harmonious, but deep down he knows this can't be.   He knows in his soul that wallowing in filth and illegal substances does him no good, but it is only until he sees its impact on Drey — in a climactic and heart-wrenching encounter — that Dunne begins to crawl out of the cave of unresolved tension.

There are many, many layers to this film, not the least of which is a significant political subtext which seems simultaneously fond of and critical of modern white liberalism.  The film features very unflattering portrayals of Dunne's parents — suburban ex-hippies who sit around drinking wine and reminiscing about the 60s while lauding their daughter-in-law for participating in a protest march. And then there is Dunne's side of the coin, getting his hands dirty (a bit too dirty) in his quest for social justice. It is not clear just what kind of answers the filmmakers are endorsing here, though mixed messages is this movie's motif, so perhaps there need not be clarity.

The clearest thing about Half Nelson is that the culmination of its numerous complexities adds up to a compelling, deeply affecting experience. It's not an easy film, but it is one that — like its title implies — demands to be wrestled with.