O Solteirão

It reminds me the classic Russian literature. A character with deep traits of looser.And the world around him. A splendid performance from Michael Douglas. And the right atmosphere. A film who you know. In each detail. Maybe, except the end. Short - bitter, honest, cruel, ironic.

At 65 years old, Michael Douglas can still command the movie screen. In recent years, his choice of parts has looked somewhat desperate to me. Solitary Man got little publicity and is playing largely art houses around the country. And it is quite a film. It is very much Douglas at his aging best. His character is true to the Neil Diamond song by the same name, a version of which is sung (badly) over the opening credits.

Featuring an all-star ensemble cast, Solitary Man centers on Ben Kalmen (Douglas), a formerly rich, highly-successful "honest" New York car dealer who pulled off a Bernie Madoff-level scam, got caught, prosecuted, and lost all of his money and most of his respect in the ensuing years-long legal battle. He did avoid jail, however. The movie opens before the scandal and 6 ½ years before the current day, with the always-cocky Ben (think Tom Sanders in Disclosure) going in for his annual physical. His long-time doctor "doesn't like his EKG" and orders major diagnostic tests for him. Flash forward to now.

Ben is divorced from his wife, Nancy (Susan Sarandon in a luscious cameo); living with a rich younger woman, Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker) and her daughter, Allyson, (the very talented Imogen Poots); trying to get a new car dealership approved by the local city council; and chasing women successfully all over the Boroughs. This 60+-year-old has all the moves, and they still work on younger women. He hops from bed to bed while milking his live-in and trying to re-capture the success he exudes from every pore but without the money or the friends he once had. Ben is living a nightmare. He is trying to bury the images with meaningless sex and a carefree, live-for-the-moment attitude that is vaguely reminiscent of his roles in films like Wall Street, A Perfect Murder and Wonder Boys.

When Jordan gets ill, she commands Ben to take Allyson to her college interview at Ben's alma mater, where he has been a major donor with his name on the library and everything. Here, the film hits its stride. Ben doesn't want to be there but the memories flood back, including those of his first meeting with Nancy. He leaves Allyson to do what she wants while he befriends a young college student (played by Adventureland's Jesse Eisenberg), becoming a mentor in the process. He also gets reacquainted with his college buddy, Jimmy Merino (Danny DeVito with whom Douglas has done countless films and with whom he roomed as a young thespian), an underachieving good guy who never left the college town and who owns a small café near campus. The very best moments involve Ben and Allyson; don't miss them.

Let's just say the story evolves from here with Ben's life spiraling downhill, all of his own doing. Nothing has been the same since the day his doctor told him he might have a serious heart problem. Everything came up smelling like roses until then and it's been all smelly fertilizer since. Even his only good relationship - with his married daughter, Susan, who loves her dad, listens to his problems and helps where she can – begins to decay. Played by The Office's Jenna Fischer in a performance that was a revelation, Susan doesn't hold any grudge about the divorce or dad's highly publicized fall. But he even does her wrong.

There are several questions the audience wants answered. Can Ben be redeemed? When he hits rock bottom, will anyone be there? Will his heart give way before that? Will he commit suicide, die of natural causes, or be saved? Co-writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien direct their first major movie after having penned films like Rounders, Runaway Jury, and Ocean's Thirteen (all favorites of mine), and they do so with aplomb. This is an exceptional, if depressing, independent film that shows that Douglas can still act, entice, entertain, and engage.

This movie is unlike any you are likely to see this year or the next few years. It seems somewhat like a French or Euro remake in that the story revolves around a man who "flaunts convention" and sleeps with any young woman who pleases him, even though his family (ex-wife, adult offspring) are well aware of his bedroom adventures and taunt him about his behavior.

His current girlfriend, who apparently knows something of and tolerates his loose standards, presses him to go with her daughter to a college admission interview over a weekend out of town. When he seduces the daughter, it is a shocking turn of events that marks this film as strikingly different. When she reveals the blatant transgression, the shocks continue. (Am I in Paris here?) So much for the first third or so of the film, which really amounts to the set-up. Disaster follows Michael Douglas' character around like a bad haircut. His chance for a comeback in business, and life, is squashed by the influential relations of his now ex-girlfriend and he descends farther into a world only he would want to inhabit.

With a more traditional storyline, this is where he would either become some sort of psycho killer or pull himself up and out to rebuild his life. Nothing doing here. There is a lot more down and self degradation to follow. He's on a mission.

I was wondering what could trigger not just a moral collapse, but that of a human being who, were are told, was one day the toast of the business world in New York and made so many millions that he had a college library named after him. You see, Ben Kalman, the main character, behaves like someone with no moral backbone at all, someone who either knows no limits or is bent on self destruction.

Fearing that the audience couldn't figure this thing out for themselves, the movie serves an explanation up complete, as if Ben Kalman, victim of himself, could somehow suddenly understand why he was doing what he was doing and consider the idea of change. All too pat, and not believable to boot. We are made to, forced to, care about a deeply flawed character and given an explanation that just doesn't hold water. If he were capable of this level of creepiness, it seems very unlikely that he would have risen to such heights and been loved and adored by so many. Obviously, there must have been some deep character flaw in him all along, but we have no idea what it might have been.

Otherwise decent people do, every day, go off the deep end. Some people commit acts of unkindness, even violence, for which friends and family can never forgive. How can one bit of unfortunate news about possible health problems send a man so far away from his grounding on planet earth and cause him to ruin everything in his life? I don't know, which is one reason, although this is a startlingly original movie with good to great acting all around, that I ultimately don't care about it and wish I could forget it.

There was one truly wise scene with DeVito discussing why he never chases young women that was almost worth the price of admission.

Doug Terry

Ben (Douglas) got caught in a car scam when he owned numerous car dealerships and paid a hefty fine for his role. He lost his wife and is trying to get his life back by setting up another car dealership.

The title of this could have been Scorpion because a scorpion does what a scorpion does regardless of circumstances and anyone and anything around it. Ben is a womanizer and that seems to be on his mind all the time despite everything else going wrong in his life. And, that never seems to change.

Ben is likable to all, but when we see him we do not like him and wish he would do the right things. There is a moment, in the beginning, when we feel Ben has it all together, has all the answers, but then we discover we were wrong. He has the gift of gab, but even though still likable, the people around him do not trust him and don't believe him either…..yet they hope the best for him.

This was a great job by Douglas so much so that I felt his pain when he reflected from time to time. A great supporting cast brings everything home to us and we are helpless to do anything but hope Ben finally realizes what he is up against. An Oscar nomination for Douglas may be in the works, but Jenna Fischer who played Ben's daughter, Susan, may get a Best Supporting nod. She was us watching Ben and hoping.

The real winner in here is the dialogue throughout. It was honest and effective.

In the beginning, Johnny Cash sings the song Solitary Man in a slow rhythmic way to let us know Ben's plight, but the song is about women who did him wrong and that was NOT the case here. Did I hear someone say, "Ooops?" It is Ben's sexual nature that does him wrong, not any woman. The ending to this story leaves us with a choice as to what we would like to see happen, but remember the scorpion.

Violence: Yes, some, not much Sex: No. Nudity: No. Sexual Content: Yes, almost throughout Language: Yes, but not much.

Solitary Man tells the story of Ben Kalmen (Michael Douglas in a good performance), a formerly successful car dealer now on a downward spiral. Now close to 60 years old, Ben seems to be living a sort of late identity crisis, chasing younger women and trying desperately to start a new business while his personal life goes down the drain as quickly as his financial situation.

The direction and writing, by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, takes a bittersweet approach to this story, chronicling the events while elegantly letting us decide what we think of Ben. In this respect, I felt they were honest and not manipulative. Unfortunately, this will also make it hard for some people to relate to the subject, unless they have contemplated those situations themselves.

The story is quite simple at its heart and tackles issues that are becoming more and more prevalent in our society. That is, we are constantly told we deserve it all, we deserve it now and we deserve it forever. Ben (implicitly and explicitly) would like to be the person he used to be, has a hard time redefining facets of his life.

Viewers will have different takes on Ben, ranging from admirable to pathetic but he is never demonized nor sainted in the movie. Unfortunately, while the themes are strongly driven throughout the film, the story itself looks more like a series of anecdotes, some of which are not stringed in the most elegant way.

The whole cast around Douglas (quite an ensemble) is excellent, except Susan Sarandon who is surprisingly bland and not up to her usually high standards. I felt her characters had few scenes but they were key to invest the audience and something was lacking there.

The film's ending is great and more food for thoughts but overall, Solitary Man falls short of being a classic due to a few writing issues.