David O'ConnellSolitary Man
July 7th 2011 06:13
Is it foolishness or audacity that spurs Michael Douglas to take on a role like that of failed New York car salesman Ben Kalmen, a 60 year old man still chasing skirt despite the destructive repercussions it has on his flailing existence? In Brian Koppelman and David Levien's Solitary Man, Kalman is shown to be an unrepentant individual with a series of personal and financial meltdowns on his CV. He’s a poor father to his only daughter, Susan (Jenna Fischer) and has a girlfriend Jordan (Mary Louise-Parker) he’s constantly cheating on. His ex-wife Nancy (Susan Sarandon) is seemingly the only person who tolerates him.
After pulling a few strings to get Jordan’s 18 year old daughter Allyson (Imogen Poots) an interview at his old Alma Mater in Boston (where he’s had a building named after him), he’s forced to tag along to grease the wheels. Then he sleeps with her. But the loss of Jordan once Allyson blurts out the truth is of little real consequence to Ben who is a classic narcissist. Here’s a man who formerly “blew up his life” after reaching a level of infamy with his car dealership and then cheating his clients and barely evading a jail sentence; a man who completely ignores his doctor’s warning about seeing something he doesn’t like on a scan and proceeds to ignore the advice given to him for 6 years.
You could accuse Douglas of going through the motions to some extent, his own real life misdemeanours perhaps filtering through the prism that is Kalman’s dubious moral stance of life and "transactions" that end in a bedroom. But the actor's appeal is unwavering through the years and Koppelman's screenplay does an admirable job of humanising Ben. He’s portrayed as less a monster than a pathetic, aging behemoth unconnected to the real world consequences of his neglect and need to physically sate himself on the innocence of the easily corruptible.
Ben is gifted a streak of humanity in his reconnection with an old college friend Jimmy (Danny DeVito), his polar opposite: a man whose modest ambitions have kept him married to the same woman and grounded in the same place his entire life. Ben can’t relate to Jimmy but he can't deny the possible advantages of such riskless behaviour. He spies another “good one” in helpful student Daniel (Jesse Eisenberg) who even suffers the indignity of having Ben proposition his own new girlfriend.
Is there anyone Ben won’t stab in the back to assuage his lusts? Or will he find redemption in confronting the truth about his generally licentious nature? There’s an easy way out of this but thankfully Koppelman negotiates a path that innately distrusts the preciseness of black and white resolutions.
Solitary Man (2010) is far from exceptional, but it’s carried along convincingly by Douglas who transforms a mostly deplorable human being into a semi-tragic figure we can't look away from. Everyone else kind of falls in line beside him: there are no standout performances, though neither are there weak links in what proves to be a very effective ensemble.
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