It's probably fairly safe to say that one of the most sought after actors of the last decade has been Ryan Gosling. He seems to constantly be in the celebrity magazines and any film that he is in has a tendency to find it's way into the main stream fairly easily. There is no doubt that he is a pretty incredible actor. I have seen many of his films including 'Crazy, Stupid, Love', 'Drive' and 'Lars and the Real Girl', and in all of them he has been very good. Therefore it only seemed right that I should watch the film for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award.
'Half Nelson' is about Dan, a middle-school history teacher and basketball coach who, whilst being a good teacher to his students, outside of school hours he has quite a severe drug problem. When one of the girls from the school basketball team discovers him drugged up in the school locker room an unlikely bond is formed between the two with each of them agreeing to help the other.
With regards to whether I think Ryan Gosling should've won the Oscar for this film, I would say probably not. It is a great performance but in terms of who beat him to the prize, it is nowhere near the performance given by Forest Whitaker in 'The Last King Of Scotland'...but this is kind of irrelevant for my purposes here.
The film overall is very good. It shows both the sweet, enthusiastic side of this talented teacher and mirrors this with his drug addled life outside of the classroom. Gosling portrays both aspects incredibly well and makes you really feel for the character and his struggles. The actress who plays Drey (Shareeka Epps), the girl from his class who Dan befriends, is also very good and in some scenes almost outshines Ryan Gosling.
Generally, I think this is by far and away on of Gosling's best performances (although personally I think 'Lars and the Real Girl' may be better) and if you are a fan of his, it is definitely worth seeing.
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