Half Nelson

> > Fuck la la land, this is Ryan Gosling’s best role. From his appearance, to his acting, he does an amazing job in this movie. He looks like part of a drug addict, thin, and always looking disheveled, and that alone is pure gold. His performance as Daniel Dunne is amazing, he accurately portrays how fast someone can go from using to “get by” to using to “just feel something” The deep feelings of loneliness and desperation seep out of his character, and I could feel it every second I was watching this movie. The shift of how he acted as he kept descending further and further down the slick hill of addiction is noticed by his actions, the way he teaches, interacts with students, and even in his appearance. At the start of the movie he seems decently put together, seems like he shaves once in a while, combs his hair, interacts with his students, yk makes the class laugh. As he slides down, his hair gets messier, he’s more twitchy, looks like he loses weight, teaches the class the same thing EVERY single day, he doesn’t bother to interact with his students the way he did before. Personally I believe Dan’s lowest points in this movie were when Drey found him smoking crack, when he almost raped his coworker, and when Drey delivered him drugs. In every one of these scenes you can see the shame and embarrassment on his fac, the regret he has over doing idiotic, impulsive things. It’s not just in his facial reactions, you can notice it in his body language too. Whenever he does something he regrets, or finds embarrassing he goes still, and tries shrink to hide from his consequences.  In conclusion, this movie was fucking fantastic, and I will be rewatching it sometime soon. (P.S RIP Dave 😞)