MOVING IMAGES film reviews Knight on Earth Laurel Gladden I For The New Mexican Goodbye Solo, drama, rated CCA Cinematheque, 982-1338, 3.5 chiles After a weeklong vacation with my family, I've been thinking: Why do we feel obligations toward relatives my crazy redneck uncle Randy, for example we'd probably never be friends with, much less spend Christmas or part of our summer vacation with, if it weren't for the bonds of blood? Then again, it's oddly reassuring to know that a small group of people somewhere will love and support you and express an interest in your life, even though you have practically nothing in common. What about those people you're not actually related to, who know and understand you better than your wacky aunts, uncles, and cousins? Goodbye Solo, from director Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Chop Shop) is a simple, graceful, moving film about obligations and family the ones we're born into and the unlikely ones we create for ourselves. The story begins abruptly. Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane) is a charming, outgoing, and relentlessly optimistic Senegalese man who works as a taxi driver in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. One night, he picks up William (Red West), a sad-eyed, leather-faced curmudgeon.
En route to a local movie theater, William offers Solo $1,000 if, on the following weekend, he'll take his passenger on a one-way trip to Blowing Rock, a mountain peak two hours away. Solo's sunny disposition initially prevents You'll never walk alone: Diana Franco Galindo and Souleymane Sy Savane Solo takes William out for drinks at a local bar and invites him to crash on his couch for a night. In the morning, he introduces William to his wife, Quiera (Carmen Leyva), and his sweet but feisty stepdaughter, Alex (Diana Franco Galindo). Quiera isn't pleased about a having a stranger sleeping on her couch, so she and Solo argue, and he ends up bunking in William's motel room. Solo continues to shuttle William around as he puts his affairs in order.
Why does Solo want to save William? Though he earns his living as a cab driver, he's also studying to be a flight attendant someone with a perma-grin, whose primary concern is that you have a safe and enjoyable journey. On a practical level, Solo sees a job with an airline as a leap into a more satisfying job with better pay. But to Quiera, it means an absent husband and father. Is William, whose wife left him 30 years before, the man Solo risks becoming if he refuses to stay grounded if he chooses his own aspirations over his obligations to his family? Though you might be tempted, don't peg the relationship between the two leads as formulaic, a la Driving Miss Daisy, The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Visitor, or even Gran Torino optimistic "ethnic" young person and crotchety old white person meet and teach each other lessons about life. Goodbye Solo isn't an obvious, heart-string-tugging movie that ties itself up with a pretty cliche about redemption.
And Bahrani doesn't romanticize Winston-Salem as a colorful old Southern tobacco town. Many of the scenes of abandoned shops and warehouses, front yards with cars up on blocks, crummy motel rooms, low-lit pool halls, nearly empty parking lots reinforce William's view of the world as run-down and lonely. One of the movie's only visual flaws is an awkward and unnecessary contrivance: Solo repeatedly consults his calendar, running his finger across the days as he tracks the approach of his impending trip to Blowing Rock. Gregarious Solo's name almost seems like a joke (William, deliberately isolated and friendless, is the real "solo" here). Throughout the movie, Solo chatters almost ceaselessly he calls most of the men he knows "Big expresses agreement by repeating, "That's what I'm talkin' and hilariously flirts with his cab dispatcher by calling her "Pork Chop." The movie's most potent moment, though, its emotional distillation, is the silent parting gaze between William and Solo, which is so charged that it almost vibrates.
Solo eventually accepts the emotional complexity of his relationship with William. Although he can't really comprehend his friend's decision, Solo knows he must be the steward on William's final flight. That's the funny thing about family, however you choose to define it: it requires you to respect others' wishes, even though you may not agree with them. -4 Optimist prime: Souleymane Sy Savane, right, and Red West him from grasping William's intentions. "What are you gonna do there, anyway? Are you gonna go camping? You going there to chill with the trees and the birds?" he asks.
With a laugh, he adds, "You going to fly away?" But when he catches a glimpse of William's grim expression in the rearview mirror, he understands. Without any establishing shots or any real clues about who these men are (although William's face, full of grief and hard living, subtly supplies an unspoken back story), Bahrani creates undeniable tension and suspense. The director has admitted, "My collaborators and I wanted an opening scene that would really grab and charm the audience right from the start." They succeeded: in less than three minutes, I was hooked. With his unflinchingly positive worldview, Solo can't comprehend William's bleak outlook. Why would anyone want to "fly away" from life? Feeling compelled to bring William back from the brink, Solo injects himself into the old grump's life, hoping friendship will inspire William to change his mind.
46 June 19- 25, 2009.
