Richard Gadd rose to prominence after creating Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, a gripping thriller depicting the story of an obsessive, one-sided love. In this sense, his latest work, Half Man, can be regarded as a spiritual sequel to Baby Reindeer, since once again Gadd takes us into a hell of unconventional and pathological forms of love, uncertain sexual identities, and unrelenting tension. But there is one crucial difference: this time, the Scottish writer-director has pushed the traces of black comedy and cringe comedy that ran through Baby Reindeer as far into the background as possible, ultimately leaving the viewer alone with the unending coldness of a horrifying story. The viewer’s psychological state while watching such a series is not all that different from what happens in its final scene: the series places a hand over the viewer’s mouth, deprives them of breath, and, at the very moment when perhaps even it did not anticipate it itself, kills them.
The series Half Man, as its title suggests, tells the story of a gay man, Niall Kennedy—or, as he prefers to describe himself, a bisexual man—who experiences an extraordinarily turbulent relationship with his half-brother, Ruben (Richard Gadd), from childhood into adulthood. Ruben is a rebellious brother whose unrestrained violence repeatedly lands him in prison.
The series can be divided into two halves. In the first half, this terrifying brother has less of a physical presence in Niall’s life than a shadow that follows the unfortunate boy step by step. In some scenes, cleverly, Ruben’s arrival is signaled not through an image but through sound: the sound of a motorcycle, footsteps, laughter, and so on. What a brilliant metaphor this is for Niall’s life! Ruben’s reputation essentially enters the world of Half Man before Ruben himself does. One might interpret Ruben as something more than a half-brother who simply possesses a more conventionally masculine temperament than Niall: perhaps a colossal shadow, a missing half, a forbidden love. Remarkably, even after Ruben disappears from Niall’s life and is arrested in the second half of the series, Niall cannot let go of him. He turns to self-destruction, dangerous relationships, and drugs in an attempt to compensate for this loneliness—a loneliness that, on the surface, should bring him peace, yet instead doubles his anxiety. In fact, if the first half represents the early days of addiction and the pleasant initial intoxication, the second is about struggling with the consequences of taking refuge in drugs. Ruben consequently acquires a more pronounced, tangible, and, needless to say, destructive presence in the second half. Clearly, this half feels considerably more terrifying and horrifying than the first.
The relationship between the two brothers can be examined on two levels. First, one could argue that all of these conflicts have a sexual dimension. This forbidden love begins to take root from the very moment the two brothers become roommates, and eventually Ruben gives voice to it. And what else, if not the demon called love, could continually bring these two brothers—who seem to bring nothing but destruction into each other’s lives—back into each other’s path? The series makes no attempt to dispel this suspicion; on the contrary, it constantly encourages it. The confrontations between the brothers, whether outside Niall’s house or in the stable, often resemble sex more than a physical fight. But if we move beyond this superficial reading, their relationship can be understood in another way: the two men are different embodiments of a single whole. Each brother is incomplete without the other; they share lovers (Mona, Joanna, and Celeste), and anyone who attempts to turn this dyad into a triad is eventually eliminated. Think of the university scene in which Ruben places his foot on Niall’s and the two begin dancing in a state of complete unity. This divided whole feeds on itself even in the material circumstances of their lives: during his years of unemployment, Niall discovers that Ruben is paying his living expenses; Niall’s book becomes successful because of Ruben; and, finally—and most importantly—it is Niall who gets Mona pregnant. In essence, even castration is shared between the two brothers: one is physical, the other psychological. We can therefore conclude that the convergence of their paths throughout the story is determined less by fate than by the unconscious.
Through this ingenious device, Richard Gadd turns Half Man into something more than another fashionable series about a gay man. As he had already demonstrated in Baby Reindeer, he turns the logic of wokeness against itself. Precisely at the moment when we might naively assume that this is simply another fashionable series, Niall delivers a sharp slap to the face of the unsuspecting viewer with a key line of dialogue. In one scene, Albie asks Niall why, despite having a lesbian mother, he is afraid to be open about his own sexual identity. Niall responds with a bitter truth about the modern world: “Because it’s more shameful for a man!” The series continues in the same vein, turning Niall’s confession of his homosexuality to Ruben—a moment that could easily serve as an opportunity for a film or series of this kind to fall neatly in line with contemporary sensibilities—into a prolonged, suspenseful, and frightening sequence. Ultimately, the confession itself seems almost irrelevant, as though it had been nothing more than a MacGuffin from the beginning.
Half Man is equally precise and deliberate in its direction and mise-en-scène. The opening confrontation between Niall and Albie in court, following Ruben’s brutal attack on Albie, demonstrates that there is a remarkably intelligent director behind the camera. In the scene, we first see the intact half of Albie’s face and then the mutilated half, as though one were a wound inflicted upon the soul and the other a wound inflicted upon the body—one by Niall and the other by Ruben. Throughout the series, scenes are also deliberately extended in length, depriving the viewer of any opportunity to relax and intensifying the story’s relentless tension.
Ultimately, Half Man represents a step forward for Richard Gadd as a writer, director, and actor alike. It shows that the director of Baby Reindeer has not remained trapped at that deceptively promising starting point, but continues to seek out new and perilous adventures.
© 2026. Phoenix Review