![‘Half Man’ Director Alexandra Brodski on Her Hands-On Approach & Being Inspired By The Safdie Brothers [VIDEO]](https://thecontending.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/image.jpeg)
Richard Gadd’s follow up to his highly acclaimed Netflix series Baby Reindeer, Half Man, is currently streaming on HBO MAX and deals with male rage, sexual repression, shame and trauma—some of the same themes explored in Baby Reindeer, but very different from that series.
This startling, audacious, brilliantly acted 6-part show centers on the often-toxic relationship between Niall (Mitchell Robertson & Jamie Bell) and Ruben (Stuart Campbell & Richard Gadd), from the time they’re teens into adulthood. The boys refer to themselves as, “My brother from another lover,” since their mothers are in a lesbian relationship. Niall is tentative, shy and super-sexually-repressed, while Ruben is a walking boner—a sexual peacock strutting about—and prone to violence.
The show opens at Niall’s wedding, with ticking-time bomb Ruben crashing. At first, he seems loving but then that quickly changes. The series then flashes back to the boys, ages 15 and 17, in high school and we become privy to how their odd but intense bond forms and we follow them as the relationship blossoms and implodes.
All four actors deliver superb performances with Gadd almost unrecognizable and Bell doing the best work of his career.
Alexandra Brodski directed of the first three episodes. Her credits include HULU’s Rivals and Channel 4’s Somewhere Boy.
The Contending spoke with Brodski about the series and specifically, Episode Three, which just dropped.
