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An inner-city junior high school teacher with a drug habit forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students after she discovers his secret.

Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is all about opposing forces. He addresses his junior high social studies class on how such conflicts have prompted necessary change throughout the course of history. What he neglects to tell them is how his responsibilities as a teacher and a role model clash with his role as a drug addict, and as the title of 'Half Nelson' suggests, the hold of his habit isn't easy to defeat. His disastrous personal life starts to intrude on his job when one of his students (Shareeka Epps) finds him strung out on crack in a toilet stall.

Gosling's triumph is that even as the character sinks deeper in a hole he is still a sympathetic figure. His intelligent face, covered in a scraggly beard, and graceful gait suggests a person of good will even if he is a bag of contradictions.

‘Half Nelson is a genuinely inspirational film'
New York Magazine

Oscar Nomination 2007 - Best Actor
Locarno Film Festival - Special Jury Prize, Youth Jury Award – 2006
Deauville Film Festival - Special Jury Prize, Revelations Prize – 2006

Dir. Ryan Fleck, 2006, USA, 106 mins, Cert 15, Axiom Films