Plays which use strobe lights must carry warnings. I think films that feature jerky, erratic camera-work should do likewise. The blurred shots, inability to hold the camera still and muffled sound clearly mirror the crack addiction of the main character, but they are also enough to induce headaches, nausea and vomiting. Although Half Nelson is possibly a very good film, I had to sit through most of it with my eyes closed and taking deep breaths. It was unsettling in more ways than one. (Kate suffers from the common, incurable disease, Cinema Vertigo.—Ed)

It focuses on the inspirational teacher motivates dispossessed student relationship, but this is no Dead Poet’s Society or Dangerous Minds, as the characters are believable, the acting decent, and the moral muted. Daniel Dunne (Ryan Gosling) teaches basketball and history in a Brooklyn school. He tells his students about turning points and they recite their narration over old footage of dramatic historical events. The film hinges on such turning points; whether growing up; making decisions or telling jokes. Mr Dunne may be off-side with the faculty for not sticking to the curriculum, but the students like him as he chews gum and drinks coffee in class; he is scruffily dressed and wears rubber bands on his wrists in a childish parody of someone disorganised enough not to have anywhere else to put them.

He desperately needs looking after, as he isn’t able to do it himself. At home he chain smokes, draws cartoons and jogs. Oh yeah, and he does drugs. A lot of drugs. This inevitably leads to financial difficulties which he deals with by ignoring them and getting stoned. Emotionally crippled, with anger problems, he can’t commit to anyone – as a reunion with an ex-girlfriend, now engaged to someone else testifies – but he has a cat. We fear that even that relationship will end badly. The ex-girlfriend tells him, “You’re not an arsehole; you’re just a big baby.” His visit to his own family is mired in layers of pretence and denial. When his student, 13-year-old Drey (Shareeka Epps), finds him tripping in the toilets, she becomes his new best friend.

Her mother works long hours for the Emergency Medical Services, her father never turns up when he says he will, her big brother is inside, and her protector, Frank, is the neighbourhood drug dealer, who supplies Dunne and got her brother put away. She could use a friend. The question is, and it is one that Dunne asks himself, should it really be him? He tries to tell her, “Just because you know that one thing about me. One thing doesn’t make a man.” It does seem an insubstantial basis for a friendship, but the acting is so good that it works; Gosling is perfectly understated and Epps is the best child actor I’ve seen in a long time without a hint of cutesy precociousness. Although there is no sexual contact, the relationship is inappropriate on so many levels, as it crosses the professional divide. Dunne tells Drey, “I’m your teacher, not your friend” and Frank informs her, “He’s a base head and base heads don’t have friends.”

Dunne tells another teacher that it’s the kids that keep him focused. In a shambolic scene he attempts to explain his theory of dialectics and how he just wants to change one person – but whom? Dunne tells his students that history is about change – “Some changes you can control, others you can’t” and that each time you breathe in, you’re a different person. As he states laconically to a kid he catches cheating, “Second chances are rare – you need to take better advantage of them.” Will he get one? Does he deserve it? He could be a great teacher if he cleaned himself up. Much better than his colleague who hangs out in the staffroom reading random snippets from the newspaper and looking forward to the summer holidays.

The film is devoid of big bang moments (no car chases, fight scenes, CGI effects) but extremely well-crafted. It narrows its focus to this intense friendship, in the way that drug use induces monomania. Most of the soundtrack is supplied by the excellent Canadian indie band, Broken Social Scene, but the inclusion of a Billy Bragg track, “New England”, with its lyric, “I don’t want to change the world” is entirely deliberate. Nothing is accidental in director Ryan Fleck’s thought provoking film, the memory of which remained long after the sickness had faded.—Kate Blackhurst