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Two Sides Of The Dream
Rating: * * * 1/2
By JONATHAN L. FISCHER, The Bulletin
“Goodbye Solo” opens with a transaction: A 70ish Southern man, William, offers to pay a cab driver $1,000 to drive him to the top of a mountain in 10 days’ time, and leave him there.
“This is kind of strange, you’ve got to give me that,” says the buoyant cabbie, a Senagalese immigrant named Solo. He lowers his voice.
“You’re not going to jump, right?”
William’s silence and a penetrating stare speak volumes.
Reluctantly, Solo takes a down payment on his fee, and so begins “Goodbye Solo,” the masterful third feature by Ramin Bahrani, the 34-year-old Iranian-American writer-director whose previous two films — “Man Push Cart” (2005) and “Chop Shop” (2007) — are among this decade’s best.
Passengers who ride in Solo’s cab are addressed only as “pretty lady” and “big dog.” Played by Souléymane Sy Savané, this is a man who loves life in spite of its hardships; he is expecting a baby with his wife, Quiera (Carmen Leyva), and adores his precocious step-daughter, Alex (Diana Franco Galindo). He aspires to become a flight attendant — his version of the American Dream.
William — played by Red West, a veteran character actor who was once in Elvis Presley’s Memphis Mafia — is on the other end of that dream. We don’t know much about his despair, save that it runs far deeper than the crevices in his face. Solo hardly knows this man, yet he resolves to save him.
Set in Winston-Salem, N.C., “Goodbye Solo” is not a film for children or young teens, yet serious moviegoers will find in it an affecting tale of friendship and humanity. As we assume it must, it ends atop that mountain — perhaps in the way we expect, perhaps not. At times, it’s easy to worry the film will veer into the territory of its acknowledged inspiration, the 1997 Iranian film “Taste of Cherry,” or worse, the grating “Driving Miss Daisy.” But Mr. Bahrani, one of a number of young directors currently applying the time-tested lessons of cinematic realism, is clearly concerned with both what his film should be and what it should not.
He rarely errs. Although the plot is sparse, serious themes, fully etched characters and carefully deployed moments of levity result in a subtle, unassuming human drama of rarely acknowledged American lives.
Jonathan L. Fischer can be reached at jfischer@thebulletin.us.
“This is kind of strange, you’ve got to give me that,” says the buoyant cabbie, a Senagalese immigrant named Solo. He lowers his voice.
“You’re not going to jump, right?”
William’s silence and a penetrating stare speak volumes.
Reluctantly, Solo takes a down payment on his fee, and so begins “Goodbye Solo,” the masterful third feature by Ramin Bahrani, the 34-year-old Iranian-American writer-director whose previous two films — “Man Push Cart” (2005) and “Chop Shop” (2007) — are among this decade’s best.
Passengers who ride in Solo’s cab are addressed only as “pretty lady” and “big dog.” Played by Souléymane Sy Savané, this is a man who loves life in spite of its hardships; he is expecting a baby with his wife, Quiera (Carmen Leyva), and adores his precocious step-daughter, Alex (Diana Franco Galindo). He aspires to become a flight attendant — his version of the American Dream.
William — played by Red West, a veteran character actor who was once in Elvis Presley’s Memphis Mafia — is on the other end of that dream. We don’t know much about his despair, save that it runs far deeper than the crevices in his face. Solo hardly knows this man, yet he resolves to save him.
Set in Winston-Salem, N.C., “Goodbye Solo” is not a film for children or young teens, yet serious moviegoers will find in it an affecting tale of friendship and humanity. As we assume it must, it ends atop that mountain — perhaps in the way we expect, perhaps not. At times, it’s easy to worry the film will veer into the territory of its acknowledged inspiration, the 1997 Iranian film “Taste of Cherry,” or worse, the grating “Driving Miss Daisy.” But Mr. Bahrani, one of a number of young directors currently applying the time-tested lessons of cinematic realism, is clearly concerned with both what his film should be and what it should not.
He rarely errs. Although the plot is sparse, serious themes, fully etched characters and carefully deployed moments of levity result in a subtle, unassuming human drama of rarely acknowledged American lives.
Jonathan L. Fischer can be reached at jfischer@thebulletin.us.
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