Portraits of the Class of 2007

The Academy has a soft spot for people portraying addicts, but Ryan Gosling's work in Half Nelson — in which he plays Dan Dunne, a high school teacher and barely functioning crack addict — carries none of the grandstanding that plagues the form. Instead, he turns Dunne into an exhausted shell, hollowed out by hangovers and barely able to muster a facial expression. The actor's greatest success comes in finding the balance between competence and collapse: The character still has to go to work, coach girls' basketball, function around his family. Wiping his nose on his collar, clapping his hands constantly in an effort to stay awake, Gosling adopts a dry, recalcitrant demeanor that's both seductive and heartbreaking — Dunne may be disappearing, but it's impossible to let him go. —Whitney Pastorek.

Source:Entertainment Weekly