Review: Half Man
Richard Gadd seems to have popped up from nowhere. He’s had the odd bit part, written for Sex Education and The Last Leg, but it seems his career began with his one-man show, which he later based ‘Baby Reindeer’ on.
He very much caught the zeitgeist of being trapped by Covid with BR, trapped, we were all looking for something thrilling to take our minds off the carnage happening outside, so we all tuned into Netflix and watched an unhinged fat bird (I can say that, as I am a fat bird) stalk a sensitive writer (Gadd). EVERYONE and his mother loved BR. I didn’t. I thought it was bitty and awkward, and although the performances were great, I found myself constantly thinking ‘Huh, why is this so popular?’ Gadd went on to win just about every plaudit going, so what do I know? The guy is a bona fide Emmy winner.
Half Man Stars Gadd (who also wrote it) and Jamie Bell (Stuart Campbell and Mitchell Robertson as teenagers) as the adult Stepbrothers Ruben and Niall, and covers the period from their meeting through their teenage years, right through to adulthood. It has, similarly to Baby Reindeer, been heaped with praise and 5 star reviews worldwide from audiences and critics. The Guardian called it a masterpiece.
I suppose the main theme is toxic masculinity, and rather than it just being about what you think toxic masculinity is – blokes, the manosphere, treating women badly, treating women as sexual objects, objectifying women, raping women, banter, violence, excuses – it explores other types of toxicity in men; missing dads, ‘powerful’ (gobby) mums, poverty, Scottishness, and perhaps a hint of abuse.
Ruben (Gadd) is supposed to be… perhaps a wounded bear? A great hulking, Baldrick-hairstyle monosyllabic grunter (more than Tom Hardy). It’s pretty obvious Ruben will kill you as good as look at you, man or boy, he doesn’t give a fuck. He’ll kick your fucking head in, and the teenage and adult Ruben DO kick your head in. He flies off the handle, he threatens, he terrifies. We all know his type.
Niall, on the other hand, is a weedy, ‘sensitive’ scaredy cat, a whining, whinging little shit who wants his own way with no consequences, who’s at once terrified of Ruben, yet looks at him like he’d like to be eaten by him while he’s fucking him to death. He’s gay yet impregnates two major female characters, he steals and cheats, and fucks men in toilets and blames Ruben always, for his shit life.
God, this sounds like the best show, doesn’t it?
But watching Half Man, I felt like a rabbit in the headlights, I could not look away from just how terrible it is, and frequently hooted with laughter at not only the terrible acting (I’m looking at you, Grunter Gadd) but the story (Ya what?) and script.
Thing is, watching a show like this, that’s had so many great reviews, I think, ‘Have I got this wrong? I mean, Gadd seems like a lovely man; he’s earnest and eloquent, he’s successful. WHY do I think this is so shit?
I’ve thought long and hard about it, and I feel the same. Half Man is a mess, a mess of ideas, and a story and characters that just make no sense.
Ruben is a scary, violent ‘ beast’ who can have any girl. As a teen, he smuggles his girlfriend into the room he shares with Niall, and just before he has sex with her, he persuades her to have sex with Niall, while he strokes Niall’s face and talks him through it. Ya what? How many brothers do that shit? I’d say zero.
Niall is gay, yet gets two women pregnant…. I could go through all the episodes and discuss each (weak) plot point and ask… why? Or even …huh?
The timeline shifts back and forth, Ruben’s in jail, and Niall is suddenly a … best-selling author? 2 weeks ago, he was sniffing coke and getting sucked off in a library; it’s all over the place. I know Gadd was aiming to portray Ruben as this wounded warrior, so powerful, yet ultimately undone by childhood abuse, and every single emotion is amplified and violent, and he shows this by standing very still, occasionally grunting and staring very hard at a Clammy Jamie Bell. I really do think Gadd’s acting like someone has told him, ‘Ere lad, this is what hard men are like, act like this’.
Around the same time, a sort of similar programme was released, also using toxic masculinity as a core theme – Russell T Davies ‘Tip Toes’. This review is about Half Man, NOT Tip toes, but I do think it’s a good comparison. I’m not a fan of Russell. His stuff is too overtly gay for me, and of course it is, he’s a very successful, gay writer! There are gay men in both shows, along with fucking horrible, violent men, lesbians, and abuse. But to me, comparing these 2 shows is like comparing a crayon drawing by a 4-year-old to a Vermeer. Davies is a gay man writing about some very flawed characters but you actually care about them, and that has such a great impact.
I hated every one of the one-dimensional characters in Half Man. The story seemed pretty pointless, 2 men, both selfish cunts, the end. NO heart. That’s the problem with it. One-dimensional characters, too many ‘Huh’? moments, and the end, the terrible end that smacks of…. ‘YOU decide what happened.
I didn’t care.
I think Richard Gadd has got a good story in him somewhere, but maybe he needs some people around him to say ‘No Dickie, that’s doesn’t make sense’.
You may watch this and think it’s fantastic, I saw the emperor’s new clothes.
Dazzler Media presents Half Man out now on Digital platforms and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD.
Review by Tina from a disc kindly supplied via Dazzler Media via The Warrior Agency.
