Sunday 10 March 2013

Day 69: Half Nelson



Trying to balance being a teacher and being an addict is proving difficult for Dan (Ryan Gosling). One of his students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), discovers his habit and the two become friends.

Drey comes across as quite lonely. Her mother is a paramedic who is working all the shifts she can in order to have some money and her brother is in prison, so she’s left pretty much to herself. One night she catches Dan smoking crack in the locker room at school and she stays with him while he goes through the effects. They seem to bond in that moment and from then on the two care about each other. He tries to help her stay away from her drug dealer friend but it’s obviously difficult for him to justify this since he can’t function on a day-to-day basis without drugs in his system. He tries to push her away but when he’s close to hitting bottom, she is there for him. It looks like he’s going to clean up and it seems to be because he has her looking out for him. It just takes one person.

“Change moves in spirals, not circles. For example, the sun goes up and then it comes down but every time that happens, what do you get? You get a new day. You get a new one. When you breathe, you inhale and then you exhale but every single time that you do that, you’re a little bit different than the one before. We’re always changing. And it’s important to know that there are some changes you can’t control but that there are others you can.”

8/10

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