‘Half Man’ Review: Richard Gadd’s Brutal Exploration of Malevolence is an Acting Masterclass from Himself and Jamie Bell [A]

“I know I cast a big shadow, even within these four walls.” 

Every victim in a prolonged cycle of abuse knows the ever-present dread, the looming threat of their abuser, the tension that always lingers even when times are good. A sense of foreboding warns that peace is precarious and could evaporate at any moment. This cycle is explored in all its visceral, violent bleakness in Richard Gadd’s new HBO limited series Half Man, the follow-up to his Emmy-winning, autobiographical Netflix series Baby Reindeer. 

Half Man opens on a wedding in the Scottish countryside, with revelry and dancing and jostling kilts. But away from the merriment in a darkened barn, Niall Kennedy (Jamie Bell) and Ruben Pallister (Gadd) square off, Niall in the formal regalia of a newly wedded spouse every bit the opposite of Ruben who is clad in black and boasts a gallery of tattoos.

The confrontation has been a very long time coming for the two men who have known each other since they were children and later forced into step-brotherhood in high school when their mothers moved in together. It was the 1980s so while the mums could not legally marry, they blended their families and a fragile teenaged Niall unhappily shared his bedroom with the swaggering, dangerous Ruben. “He bit a guy’s nose off,” 15-year-old Niall (Mitchell Robertson) protests to his brave-faced mother Lori (Neve McIntosh), a widow who is more concerned with her son’s ability to get along with girlfriend Maura (Marianne McIvor). But reluctant acceptance is Niall’s coping strategy, whether dealing with school bullies or with the volatile Ruben and his ghastly mother. “Are they happy?” Niall asks Ruben about their parents one night. “They don’t seem all that happy.” Ruben responds with surprising empathy, “There’s a lot you don’t know about.”

Unfolding like the pages of a novel, every visit back to the past brings us a few years closer to the inevitable meeting, adding new layers to a fraught and twisted story through the six episode series. Ruben helps with Niall’s bullies and Niall helps with Ruben’s school exams and for a while, things are as good as they ever could be. They dub themselves “brothers from another lover.” Niall goes off to college and finds a guarded friendship with his flatmates Alby (Bilal Hasna), Joanna (Julie Cohen), and Celeste (Philippine Velge). But the peace never lasts because Ruben’s rage always finds a way to unleash itself in increasingly horrifying ways, landing him in a loop of legal entanglements and prison time.

Niall is lost and drifting, using his father’s untimely death as his excuse for never gaining a handle on his life. The real truth, though, is that he refuses to accept or acknowledge his sexuality and spends many years in his own loop of risky behavior and outright denial. He is also trapped in a destructively symbiotic relationship with Ruben, the two never able to just stay away and live their separate lives. Trying to explain why he’s so close with his brother, Niall tells Alby, “We’re practically the same person,” to which Alby snorts, “You’re the same person in the way Jekyll and Hyde are the same person.” In one sentence, Alby perfectly sums up the predictable chaos they can never escape.

The story is focalized through Niall’s perspective and Jamie Bell masterfully bears the weight of tragedy, abuse, and self-loathing. Bell has always delivered strong performances from Billy Elliott to All of Us Strangers, talented but overlooked. Here, he is undeniably great. Every time we learn something new about Niall, whether good, bad, or simply noteworthy, Bell shifts ever so slightly: a hunch of the shoulders here, a straightened spine there, a wry smile, a look of sheer panic, and even occasionally his own degree of menace. He lets us see all of the torment swirling within Niall and invites us to judge him, for we can never be as harsh on Niall as he is on himself.

At his opposite is Richard Gadd who rose to prominence two years ago when he shocked the world with his harrowing tale of Baby Reindeer. Now the creator, writer, and star continues working through his trauma on the small screen with one of the most violent and unnerving television characters in recent memory. Ruben says and does the most horrible things, an imposing tower of muscle and fury. He brags about being the “Pied Piper of Pussy” and snarls at anyone who dares glance at him.  Who Ruben is and who he chooses to be are out of alignment and though he never tries to redeem the monster, Gadd does an excellent job of explaining him, of letting us see these glimpses of the good man Ruben could be if only he could learn to control his impulses. One minute, he’s threatening to kill someone, the next he is enthusiastically greeted by a roomful of children, and instead of feeling emotional whiplash, we simply witness the complicated nature of being Ruben.  

Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell are astonishing in their roles as the younger Niall and Ruben, perfectly mirroring the dynamic of their older counterparts. It is rare to experience a work involving younger and older casts and be equally captivated by both versions. Robertson’s wide-eyed fear and cautious hope give way to Bell’s world-weary cynicism and bitterness while Campbell’s unbridled rage gives Gadd new directions to take the character when he reenters society. Just as Niall and Ruben can’t exist without each other, the characters can’t exist without all four actors.

In addition to strong performances of well-developed characters, Half Man journeys through Scotland’s changing decades. Music sets the tone of the 1980s and early 90s with a soundtrack including The Cure, The Boomtown Rats, New Order, Yaz, and Martha and the Muffins. The slow shift of clothing and hair styles are realistic and subtle. Much like in our own lives, the passage of time feels quick and slow all at once. In the 80s, Niall lives in fear of AIDS and homophobia, and though he is far more reckless in the 90s and early 2000s, there is no pretense that those perils no longer exist or that the fears around them have dissipated. Seeing how much had not changed from 1985 to 2000 is a stark reminder that many hard-won LGBTQ+ rights are still very new. 

But for Niall, navigating all of this is complicated by his own refusal to accept himself even after having been raised by a mother who was denied many of the freedoms he could now enjoy if only he would come right out and accept his homosexuality. Yes, Ruben is always a threat lurking somewhere in the background, but in many of the ways that matter, Niall is his own worst enemy and Ruben is the personification of his own fears. 

Half Man is a brilliantly woven story that is at once a family drama, a psychological thriller and an abuse narrative. The rare moments of humor are jarring and appropriately awkward. As the narrative grows darker, our beliefs about characters change, our hopes for them shift, and we are pulled toward a conclusion that feels inevitable, bleak, and perfect.

Grade: A

The six-episode limited series Half Man debuts April 23 on HBO and streaming on HBO Max.