‘Half Man’ Review: Richard Gadd Follows ‘Baby Reindeer’ with a Dire, One-Note Slog

A quiet, oft-bullied teenage boy befriends his violent sorta step-brother with disastrous consequences across both their lives in HBO's six-part limited series from the creator of "Baby Reindeer."

“Half Man,” Richard Gadd‘s first series since “Baby Reindeer” became a surprise streaming sensation in 2024 en route to winning six Emmys, is not an “imaginary friend” series. That’s not a spoiler, because the six-episode limited series never intends for viewers to entertain the possibility that one of its two main characters only exists within the other’s mind. But it is relevant, because the thought crossed my mind multiple times anyway and, in the end, Gadd’s bombastic, one-note trauma drama suffers from the same root problem as “The Sixth Sense” and “Fight Club’s” lesser imitators: What you’re seeing doesn’t feel real, so much as it feels in service to a big reveal later on.

Only “Half Man‘s” big reveal isn’t a twist; it’s more like the opposite of a twist, where what needs to happen is obvious to everyone from the start, and the audience is asked to wait and see just how many dire situations are required for one man to find self-acceptance.

When the HBO series begins, Niall (played as a teenager by Mitchell Robertson and an adult by Jamie Bell) is a quiet, smart boy who’s bullied by his classmates, mocked by his teachers, and dismissed by his mother, Lori (Neve McIntosh). The consistent harassment partly stems from his timid nature, partly from a bowlcut that makes him look like a young Lloyd Christmas, and partly from rumors that his mother is a lesbian, given she’s living with a woman named Maura (Marianne McIvor). It’s the ’80s (or maybe early ’90s), and intolerance is still de rigueur.

Regardless of the reasons, Niall has nowhere to turn and no one to talk to when, one day after school, his mom announces he’s getting a roommate: Maura’s son Ruben (played by Stuart Campbell as a teen, Gadd as an adult) has been released from one of Scotland’s Young Offenders Institutions, where he was sent for “biting someone’s nose off,” and is already making himself at home in Niall’s room. Despite Niall’s adamant protests — “He’s a psycho!” — his mother tells him to make the best of it, presumably because she’s trying to do the same with Maura. (The mothers’ complicated relationship is only explored in the extent to which their two sons want to think about it, which is to say: not enough.)

Ruben does little to dissuade Niall’s presumptions. On their first day bunking together, the neck-tatted older brother tears up all of Niall’s posters so he can hang his own more macho decor. That night, Ruben flies off the handle and puts Niall in a chokehold for so long they end up falling asleep spooning. When they’re alone, Niall is terrified. But when they’re not, Ruben stands up for him. He talks back to the teachers. He vents about their parents. He even threatens Niall’s bullies, beating one up so badly that Niall worries his “brother from another lover” committed murder.

After they graduate, Ruben’s violent affection and Niall’s fearful dependence form a cycle. Niall aims for a clean break at university, but his anxiety over fitting in soon brings Ruben back into the fold. The pattern solidifies after graduate school, as Niall struggles to become the man Ruben wants him to be — more specifically, as Niall represses his sexuality to better emulate Ruben’s bruising masculinity.

Niall, from the start, has feelings for men. He may even have feelings for Ruben, but he’s too afraid to act on them — any of them. Be it the homophobic abuse he faces as a boy (for his weaker and thus more effeminate traits) or the half-life he witnesses his mother suffering through (living with a woman but publicly denying any romance), Niall hates that he’s attracted to men and goes to increasing extremes to smother his natural urges. Ruben is happy to help, simply by being himself.

Like “Baby Reindeer,” “Half Man” is a two-hander about an abusive relationship. But where Martha (Jessica Gunning) and her incessant stalking push Donny (Gadd) to reexamine his work, his personal life, and his damaged past — all while complicating each character until there’s a deep well of sympathy and blame for them both — his follow-up belabors a single point without expanding our understanding of either brother.

Part of that is by design. Gadd’s latest is a study of willful repression and cycles of abuse, not unconscious rediscovery and evolution in the aftermath. Niall and Ruben are locked into their toxic dynamic, and we’re shackled alongside them. It’s an intense experience, heightened by a near-constant threat of sudden barbarity and its sickening, inevitable fulfillment.

But even though abusive relationships tend to form tragic patterns, honesty isn’t all that’s necessary for a good narrative, and this one proves repetitive. “A snake sheds its skin, but it still slithers on its belly.” It’s an assertion that comes up again and again, from different voices at different times, but “Half Man” never really wrestles with its veracity. Instead, it teases change without ever engaging with what that might mean or look like for our leads, leaving its own story half-finished.

Worse yet, its structure is deceitful. Flash-forwards bookending each episode promise, eventually, Niall finds a way to exorcize his shame. It’s his wedding day, and when Ruben shows up uninvited, the blissful countryside affair will either be the sight of great healing or destruction. But by the time the climactic showdown rolls around, certain revelations about the big day never make sense, and others imply the kind of nuanced character development that never comes to fruition. Those crucial bits get skirted over as episodes lurch forward across three decades, and Gadd casts the viewer as an unpaid therapist: sitting and watching people make the same mistakes for the same reasons, always hoping their rock bottom is higher than it turns out.

As a writing exercise, “Half Man” is too transparent: Ruben is the toxic heterosexual boogeyman, emerging whenever Niall gets a little too close to coming out. As soon as the metaphor clicks in — which should be near the end of the first episode, when Ruben coaches Niall through his first time having sex — it flattens anything Gadd can do as an actor to pad out the character.

Not that he doesn’t try. Beefed up and wiled out, “Baby Reindeer’s” kind barman is nowhere to be found, as Gadd provides the requisite ferocity needed for a man who can still instill panic attacks from behind bars. But “bigger” is his only path forward, and absent dynamic change, “Half Man” relies on its casting switch to keep the performance compelling. (Campbell, as the younger Ruben, actually gets the juicer half of their shared arc.)

Bell leans into Niall’s accumulated demons, embodying so much internalized guilt, embarrassment, and dread that he’s constantly fighting to avoid doubling over. Robertson, on the contrary, infuses so much hope and innocence into young Niall’s giant doe eyes that it stings all the more to see them vanish from Bell’s gaze.

None of it is enough to prop up a rushed conclusion, which would feel merciful in its brevity if it weren’t also frustrating in its oversimplifications. Not only does “Half Man” end without attaining the same level of lived complexity as Gadd’s past work, but its conclusion also ensures the only way to read their story is as an allegory. They’re half-men who add up to even less.

Grade: C-

“Half Man” premieres Thursday, April 23 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max. New episodes will be released weekly through the finale on May 28.