June 16, 2010

MOVIES: Solitary Man (Brian Koppelman & David Levien, 2010)

Low-key character study, dominated by a fine Michael Douglas performance.

Douglas plays Ben Kalmen, and as the movie opens, he's getting some bad news from his doctor. We immediately leap forward six years, and only gradually do we put the pieces together about who Ben was before that doctor's visit and who he's been since.

Once upon a time, Ben had it all -- happy marriage, successful string of auto dealerships (he was known as "New York's honest car dealer") -- but he's spent those six years slowly destroying everything that mattered in his life. Koppelman's screenplay makes the interesting choice to skip over all of those self-destructive years, and focus instead on the year or so during which all of Ben's birds come home to roost, and he's finally forced to face up to the shambles he's made of his life.

Douglas is fabulous here as a vain 60-year-old who expects the women to be just as interested as they were when he was 40, and doesn't seem to grasp how many relationships he's trashed, or what the consequences will be. He's surrounded by a solid supporting cast -- Susan Sarandon as his ex-wife, Mary-Louise Parker as the most recent in a long string of girlfriends, Jenna Fischer as his frustrated daughter, Danny DeVito as the old friend who may be the last person Ben hasn't driven away. Even Jesse Eisenberg, playing the annoying college kid that he always plays, comes off reasonably well, which is a significant directorial achievement all by itself.

Solitary Man isn't a great movie, but Douglas is so good in it that it's at least worth a rental when the DVD arrives.

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