Indie film did not start out as a genre but it has certainly become one. Of course, not every indie film fits into this genre but enough do that when you go to the indie section of Blockbuster, you know what you can expect to find. Let’s run down the list: a generic indie film is slowly paced, character driven and almost exclusively shot with handheld cameras. It’s usually well acted, dingy looking and shot mostly with available light and in extreme close-up. The editing style is hyperactive (which would seem to run counter to the slow pace of the rest of the film) and calls attention to itself, often employing jump cuts or radical changes in time or location from one shot to the next. There are a few random asides about topical issues (usually liberal in viewpoint) and often casual drug use and sex. And the end, when it comes, will be signaled not so much by something happening but instead by a slight change in viewpoint or tone.
That the above list is pretty much the blueprint for Half Nelson would probably lead you to believe that the film is crap. But it’s actually not half bad. Just like you occasionally run across a good slasher film that's generic through and through but still manages to be entertaining, so too is it possible to run across a generic indie film that's still enjoyable. And this is that film.
Credit for that goes almost entirely to the writing. Anything good or interesting or entertaining about this film is due to the writing and what the terrific actors do with the words they're given. Much has been made of Ryan Gosling’s performance and rightly so but it’s not quite the tour de force I anticipated it to be. Instead his performance is subtle and interesting and very entertaining. For that matter, so is the performance of Sharreka Epps as the girl that eventually saves the Gosling’s screwed up teacher.
And it’s that facet of the story, the redemption of the teacher, that is by far the least satisfying aspect of the film. I guess going in I figured that if someone wanted to make this story, this tale of addiction, they would have had some history of using if not abusing drugs. I mean, the film is about addiction, why make it if you didn’t have some history with drugs? I figured that maybe, for once, there’d be a film that dealt with drug use in a realistic way. And for a while that’s what we’re given here. The first hour, in fact, is pretty much just the story of a high functioning drug addict and what his daily life is like.
But it’s when things start to fall apart and Gosling's Dan starts to unravel (as he must in this sort of story) that the film goes off the rails in terms of its depiction of drug use. Pretty soon Dan is cursing at the thirteen-year-old girl who tried to befriend him and trying to rape his sort of girlfriend and skipping out on work to get high all day in a motel room. I understand that this sort of thing “has” to happen to give the film dramatic heft. But I can’t believe that someone who had any real experience with drug use would ever write this. It’s just patently false. Doing drugs does not change who you are or how you behave. Someone that’s done drugs would know this. And thus the third act of the film is more or less a failure and a cop out. But oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
