‘Goodbye Solo’: Another dreary hype
After missing the press screenings and then reading all the glowing reviews of Ramin Bahrani’s “Goodbye Solo” – some of which hailed Bahrani as the next great American filmmaker – I bought a ticket in Manhattan yesterday to see what all the fuss was about.
I’m still wondering.
Turgid and uneventful, built around two characters of opposite demeanor whose paths temporariliy reach a confluence, “Goodbye Solo” is another under-paced, under-dramatized film that falls into “neo-neo-realism” category that A.O. Scott went on about at such great lengths in a recent Sunday Times magazine piece.
But like other titles he cited – films like the wildly overrated “Ballast,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Old Joy” and the early films of David Gordon Green – “Goodbye Solo” is a movie about nothing that wants you to think it’s about something. Buy tickets to these films at your own peril.
“Goodbye Solo” is about a taxi driver named Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane) in Winston-Salem, N.C. A native of Senegal, he dreams of putting taxi-driving behind him for the glam life of a flight attendant.
When first seen, he’s driving a cranky elderly customer named William. The customer tells him that, a week or so hence, he wants Solo to drive him to Blowing Rock – an area attraction. He’ll pay him $1,000 for a one-way fare. The implication is that he wants to go there to jump off but, like many things in this dreary, indistinct film, that’s left to your imagination.
William is played by Red West, once Elvis Presley’s bodyguard and part of his Memphis Mafia. West has a baleful stare which, aside from the occasional “Leave me alone,” is all he has to offer Solo. Yet Solo butts into his life and looks into his past, hoping that he can offer some glimmer of hope for the future to divert William from his intended path.
There’s also a lot of business about Solo’s fractious relationship with his pregnant Hispanic wife – but it offers little of substance, either. Like the William plot thread, it goes nowhere.
But that’s a trademark of this neo-neo-realism. These movies are not about much of anything; no one says much of anything; and no one does much of anything. Say what you will about the so-called mumblecore school of filmmaking – with its slapdash aesthetic and endless self-regarding conversations – but at least those movies seem to have something on their minds, beyond creating a mood.
“Goodbye Solo,” however, is a thin character study over which critics wank themselves into a state of ecstasy at all the meaning they can superimpose on the film – sort of the way people imagined that the emperor was wearing beautiful clothes.
I’m not saying that movies about nothing can’t be entertaining. I still dearly love David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” and Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise” – neither of which has anything like a plot and both of which are as much about atmosphere as anything else. But “Goodbye Solo” – and “Wendy and Lucy” and “Ballast” and the rest of these oat-bran-flavored movies – just don’t cut it.
I won’t go so far as to call them frauds, because I’m sure the filmmakers meant well. That would also imply a much greater degree of intent and inspiration than any of these sad-sack excursions into cinematic dreariness seem to have.
So let’s just call “Goodbye Solo” the most overrated movie of the year.
So far.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Well, we finally got out to a movie and this was it. So I liked it, or at least liked being out at the movies. Or the oat bran flavoring.
It wasn’t great I guess, but I did like the actor who played the taxi driver.
April 25th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
The “wanking” statement was hilarious and oh so true! The five minute urine sweeping scene was the perfect example of overkill.
I was looking for your quote to send someone and it appears that Rotten Tomatoes removed your review from their site. Is this true?
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Marshall,
Mark S. from Rochester, N.Y.- Thank God you are one of the only critics to call this film out: I saw it last nigth & was BORED out of my mind.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Your review of \Goodbye Solo\ hit the mark. I sat there painfully aware of how slowly time was passing. The movie, though, gave us something to talk and laugh about at dinner afterwards.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:35 am
In an age of hyper-saturated non-stop ear splitting 3D CGI generated eye noise masquerading as good films, Good Bye Solo is a refreshing oasis of quietude. Steeped in the lost art of restraint, Souleymane Sy Savane and director Ramin Bahrani understand that less can be more — when you respect an intelligent audience’s capacity to lavish in metaphors over needing to be beat over the head. Reality is rarely a thrill a minute. Sometimes the scariest moments happen internally with only a trace to leak outside. I see deserving Awards everywhere for Good Bye Solo. Great art ain’t always pop.
September 7th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Thank God, I was starting to wonder if I had somehow lost my soul as this was called the movie of the year by so many critics! It stretches mercilessly without anything to hold on to in characterization, plot or emotional substance of any kind. It’s one of those indies that were made by people who believe a topic is a plot and though it certainly did seem to fool a lot of people, it’s really not enough for me.
For some reason it looks like more and more people judge a movie on the last five minutes… if there is a twist, a dramatic ending or any type of plot device, those asleep during the whole movie shouts Hurray… it seems to be the case here.
Just because a movie is not GI Joe doesn’t make it rich or metaphoric… if you want to see boring pointless reality, get out of the theatre and watch the street for 2 hours.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Just saw this movie, and while the cinematography is really good (especially for an indie film), and the lead performance by Souleymane Sy Savane is wonderful, the film isn’t really that good. The script is ponderous and plodding, making its points with a mallot, and the film is very episodic and doesn’t flow at all. Red West’s character is completely unlikeable, and his performance is painfully one note. Solo’s engagement of him doesn’t make sense either. The subplot of his pregnant wife seems like it was thrown in to break up the monotony.
While it’s not as bad as some of the films you cited (like David Gordon Green’s first two films, which are really sloppy and incoherent), it’s still very overrated by critics.