Unlike other films about inner-city schoools, Half Nelson, directed by Ryan Fleck, is not a gross stereotype of the conditions and inhabitants of urban schools. While there is a long list of problems with our educational system, student behavior, and the condition of schools in this country, Hollywood has gone out of its way to exaggerate behaviors and simplify problems to an insulting extreme. The eighth graders depicted in Half Nelson are not the precocious cuties or hardened thugs of mainstream films. They’re average city kids with acne, braces, and braids. This is an impressive film that challenges many stereotypes.

Daniel Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is a white man teaching in a Brooklyn middle school, but he is not the selfless, white do-gooder teacher with an insulting there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I-attitude that we have seen in other films about white teachers in urban schools. Dunne is a man raised by 60s era activists and reads radical black literature such as Malcolm X and W.E.B. DuBois, but the cliché stops there. He’s teaching his middle school students the theory of dialectics in (get this) engaging lectures.

What is history? Change, he tells them. And dialectics is the study of how things change over time. His assignments include his students standing up to report on the impact of historical events such as Brown v. Board, Attica, and the assassination of Harvey Milk. Some of the best scenes of the film are the shots of individual students reporting on these events, the stark contrast of their modern faces speaking with real-life footage interspersed. All this while the school principal hounds Daniel about being on a certain page in the Civil Rights binder, a conversation that any thinking teacher will recognize.

Daniel Dunne is also a crack addict. And when one of his students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), accidentally discovers his secret, the two characters engage in a remarkable friendship that is all at once, intimate, troubling, and beautifully poignant.

Drey is the most realistic female teenager I have ever seen depicted on film. She never falls into the stereotypical put upon girl who drowns her problems in promiscuity, drugs or ditziness. Shareeka Epps plays her flawlessly with an exterior full of bravado and a tender, vulnerable smile always at the ready.
Drey’s story is that of a young girl who must grow up too fast because the adults around her are struggling to keep their own lives afloat. She listens mournfully as her hard-working mother berates her father over the phone for not taking a more active role in her life. She finds her teacher in a crack stupor, beseeching her to stay with him “just one more minute.” Her beloved older brother is in jail for drug dealing. And Drey finds herself accepting the occasional guilt-induced monetary contributions from Frank (Anthony Mackie), the local drug dealer, who is responsible for her brother’s incarceration.

Like Daniel, Frank is also a complex character who defies our preconceived assumptions. Frank is likeable; he looks after Drey, but he also offers her a job slinging drugs. At one point, Frank questions Drey’s relationship with Daniel, explaining to her “a base head doesn’t have friends.” And neither do drug dealers, apparently. Frank is not malevolent, but he clearly does not have Drey’s best interest at heart. He, like all drug dealers, ultimately cares about the money he can make, not about the community around him. Drey eventually tries out the job of running drugs for Frank, setting up a powerful scene in which Drey experiences the temptations and realities of the drug economy.

All this Drey endures with an air of weary acceptance that never descends into cynicism or despair. This movie highlights the resilience of young people that I think our society all too often takes for granted. Where are the adults who are grown up enough to take care of our children?

Half Nelson eschews the neat “everything will be okay in the end” finale. Questions are left unanswered. Will Daniel get sober, can he maintain his job as a teacher despite his addiction, will he and Drey remain friends, will she be okay? None of these questions are answered.

Like the dialectics that Daniel teaches, this is a film of forces colliding. The film’s characters are nearly destroyed by the pressures surrounding them. But there remains the hopeful possibility that change is possible, that we can respond to the contradictions in our lives by connecting with one another and choosing to live differently.

Julia Putnam was the very first volunteer to sign up for Detroit Summer in 1992. She has taught in Detroit public and charter schools for five years. She lives in Detoit with her husband, Peter, and their beautiful son, Henry.