First Look: HALF NELSON
Release Date: August 11, 2006
Distributor: THINKFilm
Director: Ryan Fleck
Screenwriter: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Karen Chilton, Monique Curnen, Shareeka
Epps, Tina Holmes, Collins Pennie, Deborah Rush, Jay O. Sanders, Sebastian
Sozzi, Nicole Vicius, Tristan Wilds
Synopsis: Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling), an idealistic inner-city junior high
school teacher, inspires his 13 and 14-year-olds to examine everything
from civil rights to Civil War with a new enthusiasm. Rejecting the standard
Civil Rights curriculum in favor of an edgier approach, Dan teaches his
students how change works – on both a historical and personal scale.
Though Dan can get it together in the classroom, he spends his time outside
school on the edge of consciousness. Dealing with a serious drug
habit, Dan is a strung-out role model. He juggles his hangovers
and his homework, keeping his lives precariously separated, until one
of his troubled students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), catches him getting high
after school. From this awkward beginning, Dan and Drey stumble into an
unexpected friendship that threatens either to undo them or to provide
the vital change they both need to move forward in their lives.
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