Solitary Man

I've stated earlier that at the end of the year I'll be posting a list of my favourite films from 2000-2009. Of course, as I've been preparing for this, I've been trying to get into the habit of writing a little more about films as I see them. I see too many movies to review them all on here; I decided that early on. But what I think I'm going to try to do is review any movies that I go see in the theatre. I don't go all that often, so I think this is a manageable goal, especially if I keep the review relatively short. I'll start with the movie I saw last night, Solitary Man, starring Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jenna Fischer, written by Brian Koppelman, and directed by Koppelman and David Levien.

This movie is about a 60-year-old car dealer, Ben Kalmen (Douglas) going through a major midlife crisis, and his attempt to figure out his priorities in life. His prestige and finances have taken a hit in recent years, forcing him to reevaluate his extravagant lifestyle.

This movie is solidly written, and very well acted. I was particularly impressed with Jenna Fischer: this was the first time I've seen her in anything outside of The Office, and I thought she did a great job of not being Pam. In fact, her character was quite different than Pam, so credit is due to the casting director for seeing Fischer's potential here. There's really not much to complain about in this movie, everything was pretty well done. I generally enjoyed it.

Nothing, however, was excellent. I left the movie feeling empty, and the "message" of the movie was trite, obvious, and predictable. There were a few things that threw me off a bit, too, such as Cheston (Jesse Eisenberg from The Squid and The Whale) adopting Ben as his mentor, despite knowing a fair bit about him, based on a few minutes of interaction, or the mafia randomly showing up at the behest of Ben's ex-girlfriend to teach him a lesson. It's one of those movies that can't quite decide what it's point is, and despite only being 90 minutes long, I felt like it was rambling at points. Of the three "S-Man" movies I've seen in the last 8 months (A Single Man, A Serious Man, and Solitary Man), this was my least favourite. 7/10.