A white New York high school teacher (Gosling) struggles with off-campus drug addiction and a lonely existence, forming a friendship with one of his female black students (Epps) after she discovers him taking drugs. Despite their polar opposites, the two find a kind of middle ground looking out for each other amongst the urban ghettos of the American capital.

Indy director Ryan Fleck's debut feature is an understated character study of a young man drowning in an increasingly meaningless and uninspiring world. Animated in the classroom, where he teaches history to his mostly non-white students, Dan Dunne gets high on the triumphs of the civil rights movement, Vietnam protests and other periods of social and political change. Outside the classroom he lives alone, with just his cat for company, not writing his book and spending his free time getting high on crack.

The feel to Nalf Nelson is raw, from Dan's bare and badly furnished apartment to the bad neighbourhoods he visits to score drugs. When student Drey finds him strung out it is in the toilets of the girls' locker room, where he lays down on the toilet floor and asks her to stay with him. Dan has no friends, an ex-girlfriend and a fellow teacher he occasionally sleeps with. His family are average, with a father who drinks maybe a little too much. He has a good relationship with his pupils, is a well-liked basketball coach, and an inspirational teacher. Fleck points to Dan's environment outside the school that fails to fill him with the same fervour that contributes to his drug dependency, rather than a clich�d unloved childhood.

His salvation comes in the form of Drey, whose dad isn't around and brother's in prison. She is young and disadvantaged but has the foresight to not get sucked in by the drug culture around her and experienced enough to stick with teach and see him straight. Nothing sexual is suggested by their relationship, but that an unlikely friendship is formed from Drey's desire to save Dan from taking the drugs people like her brother sold, and Dan's need to protect Drey from drug dealer Frank (Mackie) who is using her as a runner.

As Dan's classroom and drug worlds begin to slide into each other, so his and Drey's lives become more closely linked, lives that his history class shows us were once entirely separate. Fleck's anti-hero is a sad by-product of urban alienation where a young teacher with great potential becomes overwhelmed by the few rewards found in helping disadvantaged kids. Drey is one of those kids, whose broken background actually becomes a platform from which she can help Dan survive.

Ryan Gosling plays the strung out teacher with a good dose of world weary resignation, but he is outshined by Shareeka Epps who brings a maturity way beyond her years to 13-year-old Drey in a confident and quietly studied performance.

An introspective look at the decline of a role model and the strength of youth against all odds, Half Nelson brings a new strand to a familiar theme. Exploring the dynamics of the teacher-pupil relationship, the film turns the issues explored in films such as To Sir, With Love and Blackboard Jungle on its head with the teacher as the hopeless drug addict and the pupil his mentor. Fleck refreshingly leaves out any moralising or attempt to explain his character's addiction, instead concentrating on honing an unpretentious story of friendship.