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Half Man: A study in brutal authenticity

by in fiction, Half Man, Richard Gadd, television, writing and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Your life is an accumulation of choices you make along the way, small to large. Some you sense will be impactful. Others you have no idea. And then some things are beyond your control and they set you along a particular course. These things could be curses or they could be blessings.

In a sense, your fate—where you end up—becomes determined (preordained?) by all these choices.

This idea is captured by the six-episode TV show Half Man.

Before I get into describing and dissecting Half Man, a quick detour. I started the first episode blind. I got about ten minutes in and I was like, what the hell am I watching. I had to stop and do a little digging. Half Man is written by and stars Richard Gadd. He’s the guy behind Baby Reindeer, which came out a few years ago. I’d never seen it. Baby Reindeer was a huge hit, and I knew it was autobiographical, so rather than continuing with Half Man, I switched over to Baby Reindeer. I needed to know who the hell this dude was.

Baby Reindeer, which Gadd also wrote and stars in, is based on his real-life experience with a stalker. It was strange and great. Having dealt with a stalker myself, it left me unsettled. Like Gadd, I’d blamed myself for her actions, even though I deserved no blame, and I pitied her, even though she didn’t deserve it. In Baby Reindeer, Gadd shows pure human messiness. When I finished it I went back to Half Man.

Half Man is the story of star-crossed step-brothers—Niall Kennedy and Ruben Pallister, whose mothers are lovers. The first three episodes focus on younger Niall and Ruben (Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell), and the last three focus on them as adults (Jamie Bell and Richard Gadd). It follows Niall and Ruben from their teenage years to adulthood. Along the way, they become enmeshed and entangled, for better and for worse. Mostly worse. They have a genuine filial love for each other, but they’re also toxic due to Ruben’s control and Niall’s envy, and as their awful life choices compound, this toxicity turns to poison. Their fates catch up with them.

First, the acting. I can’t say who among the four is best. They’re all gripping, and the transition from younger to older is seamless. Jamie Bell and Richard Gadd are an interesting pairing. Bell, who plays Niall, is slight and disheveled while Gadd as Ruben is hulking and full of swagger. It’s jarring to see Gadd in this role following Baby Reindeer. It’s such a physical transformation, and it’s more than him just bulking up. I don’t understand how actors can pull that kind of transformation off.

I’ve watched Half Man twice now. The first go-around was brutal. Niall’s the main character. We walk through the story alongside him. We meet him at 15. His father died when he was a child and he lives with his mother, Laurie and her girlfriend Maura. Niall is nervous and frail and gets bullied. When he learns that Maura’s son, Ruben, is getting out of juvy and will be living with them, he panics.

Soon enough Ruben bursts on the scene. He is imposing and controlling and magnetic. Niall, who is just beginning to realize he might be gay, is drawn to Ruben, though not just physically. He’s terrified of Ruben, rightly, but enthralled by his bravado and presence. He craves Ruben’s attention. Ruben, in turn, becomes protective of Niall, though he insists everything be on his terms. This dynamic sets the course of their lives.

Niall is one of the more difficult protagonists I’ve seen in fiction. He’s needy, desperate, self-serving, and conniving. I don’t particularly like him. I can’t relate to him. But I can’t turn away from him. And Ruben is an asshole. He’s brutal, both physically and verbally. He’s so wounded that all he knows how to do is lash out.

What’s fascinating is their bond. On a surface level it can be read as homoerotic, especially since Niall, throughout the show, struggles to come to terms with his gayness. But their bond is deeper. They complete each other in a sense; each has what the other lacks. They know this on some level, which leads to a magnetic pull for closeness that’s ruined by envy and control.

Like Romeo and Juliet, Half Man is a tragedy. My first time watching it was all I could to to keep my heart rate down. The rewatch let me appreciate how Gadd cleverly constructs this story. For example, when Ruben first appears, he struts into Niall’s classroom. What is the teacher lecturing about? Romeo and Juliet, a foreshadow of what fate has in store for them.

Gadd leaves hints throughout the series. Early on, you know that something is very wrong with Ruben. I figured it was either one of two reasons: he’s either gay and in full repression mode, or he was molested. Turns out it was the latter. Gadd dropped these hints here and there, subtle but unmissable, so that when the reveal comes, it all feels earned. During some of Ruben’s violent outbursts, especially at the climax, you can even see Ruben perpetrate elements of his own abuse. Gadd makes it all feel real. And, strangely, he makes you feel some sympathy for Ruben.

Niall, too, is not without sympathy. Yes, he is so incredibly selfish that it’s hard to root for him. Either consciously or subconsciously, he deviously undermines Ruben. He’s self pitying. An eternal victim. At one point Ruben calls him King Rat. It fits. But Gadd also shows us how utterly alone and terrified Niall is. His mother Laurie is a textbook cold fish. While not cruel per se, she’s lacking in maternal instincts. Having that as a mother, having lost a father at a young age, and being bullied at school would naturally leave Niall at a severe deficit.

This ambivalence is a hallmark of Gadd’s writing, and maybe why I connect with it. Even in the relationship between Niall and Ruben, Gadd weaves the good with the bad. On one hand, Ruben threatens violence on Niall (and inflicts it). Niall schemes and lies to get back at him. But they also share a genuine closeness. On a school test, Niall cheats for Ruben so he won’t get sent back to reform school. Ruben teaches Niall how to box. Later on when Niall is down and out Ruben pays for his expenses, In another world, they could have been good for each other. But then Half Man wouldn’t have been half as compelling.

The writing consistently is terrific, and while I won’t go through all of it (watch it instead and see for yourself), I’ll cover the ending.

Even though you know they’re poisonous together, you want them to work things out (they come so heartbreakingly close). But with Ruben’s rage and Niall’s self-destructiveness, it can only end tragically. I can’t say the ending left me sad. No. Strike that. It did leave me sad. It didn’t have to be that way, but with the shitty hands they were dealt compounded by the shitty choices each of them made over several decades, Half Man could only end the way it did. Not every story earns a happy ending.

That calls back to the common thread I see in Gadd’s writing—he’s not afraid to portray ambivalence and ambiguity. People aren’t always 100 percent right or wrong. They’re complicated. Motivations, actions, impressions, all can be inconsistent. People and life can be messy and confusing. Gadd shows all of this. There are no easy answers and very few easy people.

Some of the press surrounding this show framed it as an examination of toxic masculinity. I hate that term. It’s a dismissive blanket statement, dismissive not just of men but of human experience. Yes, Half Man focuses on men and masculinity, but it’s a human story about how fucked-up people can end up fucking up other people, and each other. Sex/gender doesn’t matter. If Ruben had a better childhood, maybe he wouldn’t have been so brutal. If Niall could’ve been more self accepting, maybe he wouldn’t have been so destructive. To say that their toxicity is connected to their maleness doesn’t make sense, because they are males, so that’s the frame in which they can operate.

A final thing about Half Man. One of the themes Gadd touches on is loneliness. He gives us two boys who’ve suffered abuse and abandonment and are isolated. A lot of us have felt lonely in childhood and adolescence in one way or another. Both Ruben and Niall did, for different reasons. And like a lot of us, they struggled to fill that void of loneliness. Unfortunately for them, they each filled it with the worst possible person. Despite the tragic ending, I appreciate that Gadd was able to present this loneliness in such a relatable way.

The writer in me is impressed by what Gadd created in Half Man. The brutal honesty, the subtlety, the complexity, even the subject matter of a close and toxic relationship between two men. The viewer in me was drawn to a story about the need for connection, and how even if it all goes so horribly wrong, that doesn’t negate the need. Half Man is dark, it’s difficult, and it’s human.

Diving into the layers of Obsession

by in horror, movies, psychology and tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obsession is one of the most talked about movies in recent times. What’s left to say about it?

I’ve got a couple things…

First, the basics. Obsession is an indie horror movie written and directed by Curry Barker, produced for $750,000 that could hit a $300 million gross. Insane. The premise is straightforward and not particularly original. Bear has a massive crush on Nikki, a childhood friend, coworker and member of his friend group. Unable to admit his feelings for her, he makes a wish using a novelty toy called One Wish Willow. His wish: that Nikki would love him more than anyone else in the world.

It works.

Almost instantly, Nikki becomes obsessed. Bear finds it odd and hard to believe, but he goes along with it. Naturally, hijinks ensue. By hijinks I mean horror.

As I alluded to, there’s not much particularly new about the premise. Obsession is a classic monkey’s paw tale, where a wish leads to horrible consequences. Plotwise nothing surprised me. And I could see the jump scares from miles away.

What makes Obsession shine is Barker’s level of craft. The world feels real, in the most tangible of ways: the sets, the look, the feel, all of it had a richness and a sense of claustrophobia. The acting was uncanny. How the hell did Inde Navarette prepare for her role as Nikki? The things she could do with her face and body and voice were chilling and funny and heartbreaking, sometimes all within a space of a minute. Michael Johnston as Bear had a tougher role—he’s the straight guy. The “victim” (though not really). His role was more reacting to Nikki’s antics. Plus he’s playing basically a loser. How do you inject sympathy into that role? I don’t know, but he did it. You might not be on his side, but you can see his side.

At least in the first act.

In the aftermath of this movie’s surprise success (Is anyone shocked that people don’t want another franchise garbage film?), there’ve been dozens, hundreds, thousands of podcasts and x posts and Substacks analyzing Obsession.

So, of course, why not one more?

Most of what I’ve seen focuses on things like Bear’s selfishness and Nikki’s lack of consent and what these say about modern culture. That bores me. Politics mostly bores me.

What interests me is the human condition, and Obsession tackles two.

The first is loneliness.

One of the media’s current bandwagons is about the so-called male loneliness epidemic. Here’s a tip: avoid bandwagons. Anything I’ve read on the topic turns out to be a backhanded way to bash men and masculinity. Instead, we should view loneliness not through a male or female lens but through the lens of the individual.

Obsession uses Bear to highlight this issue of loneliness. The opening scene is a tight shot on his face as he’s gushing out his feelings for Nikki. He’s nice looking and hopeful and scared. He’s relatable and sympathetic. He lives alone in his grandmother’s old apartment with his cat. No other family is mentioned, so I assume he’s been left alone. Early on, he comes home to find his cat dead. There’s a great shot of him sitting on his bed sobbing. The contrast of those two scenes really got to me. He’s a character who is aching and needy and alone.

But his tragic flaw is that he cannot get himself to take action in his own life. He’s paralyzed by fear.

A lot of criticism against Bear concerns the one action he DOES take: making that wish. First, a defense. Who hasn’t wished for something? Plus it’s not as if he truly believed the wish would work. The act of making that wish doesn’t make him the bad guy, and it’s a stretch to say that the wish was a sign of weakness or villainy.

But a case could be made that Bear’s culpability grew as he ignored the blaring signs that all was not right with Nikki. Even after he realized the wish did in fact work, he was still trying to find a loophole.

Still, I have a lot of sympathy. One of the roughest scenes emotionally is when Nikki is sleeping and she says something like, “she’s asleep, kill me,” (implying the real Nikki was trapped inside—she was), and his response was along the lines of “what’s so bad about loving me?” (probably misquoting but you get the gist). This told me that Bear’s pain was so intense that he couldn’t even see Nikki’s.

Horror can work as a morality tale, and this was one of the morals: loneliness can blind you to the truth. It can corrupt you. It can ruin you. Bear’s loneliness definitely did that for all involved.

What about Nikki’s story?

To see it clearly we’ve got to strip out the supernatural. It’s not cheating; horror works on metaphor. It examines human fears by exaggerating them.

Looking at it from this angle, Nikki’s story becomes easier to discern. It doesn’t take a genius to do so (hint: look at the title). (In her wishcast state) Nikki is obsessed with Bear. She acts out in the most creepy, disturbing, horrifying and violent ways because of her obsession. Almost everyone has dealt with, known of, or experienced themselves, a nasty case of obsession.

But what interests me most about Nikki’s story is that it operates on twl levels: an exterior and an interior.

First, the exterior. I’ve read some deep dives saying her behavior mimics borderline personality disorder. I don’t have a background in psychology so I won’t comment on whether this is truly BPD-like behavior. But the mood swings, the intense focus, the possessiveness, the anger, the desperation, and the terror of rejection all ring true to life. Watching Obsession called to mind Baby Reindeer, Richard Gadd’s non-supernatural yet still horrifying true account of his dealings with a stalker.

This is what makes the horror so intense. Yes, we all know that Nikki’s obsession was caused by a supernatural spark and thus not genuine, but her actions feel so real because of the emotional truth behind it. As a writer, I respect how Barker was able to convey this true-to-life experience in such a cartoonish setting and have it hit.

While the exterior experience of Nikki’s obsession is riveting, what intrigued me the most was Nikki’s interior experience. In the movie, the real Nikki is an unwilling participant in this obsession. She wants no part of it. But she’s trapped. An observer. A puppet with no control.

This is horrifying. She does not want this. Yet she’s forced to witness all of this.

But let’s pull back from the supernatural and shift to the real world. Oftentimes someone who’s in the grip of an obsession (or an addiction), knows logically that what they’re doing is either harmful or utterly pointless, yet they’re still compelled (or possessed, much like Nikki is possessed). One part of you acts out the rituals of your obsession/possession (as in the shrine she built to Bear). Another part of you watches as your compelled to do things you don’t want to do.

You cannot stop yourself. You’re trapped by your obsession and forced to witness your compulsion.

What is this if not horror?