Solitary Man DVD Review





Title: A Solitary Man
Starring: Michael Douglas, Jenna Fischer, Jesse Eisenberg, Mary-Louise Parker, Susan Sarandon, Danny Devito
Director: Brian Koppelman, David Levien
Duration: 90 minutes
Released: 4th October 2010
Certificate: 15

Solitary Man DVDA Solitary Man written by Brian Koppelman is a thoughtful film in which Ben Kalmen (Michael Douglas) – once the owner of a hugely profitable car dealership empire in New York City – is now verging on bankruptcy. He’s trying to get back into business but because he was involved in a scam, no one is willing to let him get back into the game. Ben has another problem, he’s 60 years old but he still wants to act like he’s 20. He’s a real ladies man. He’s in a relationship with Jordan Karschof (Mary-Louise Parker) but he ends up having sex with her Allyson (Imogen Poots). Ben’s daughter (Jenna Fischer) is also having trouble trusting Ben and soon the only people he can turn to are his ex-wife (Susan Sarandon), an old friend from college named Jimmy (Danny DeVito) and a young guy named Daniel that goes to college with Allyson (Jesse Eisenberg).

Solitary Man tracks Ben's downward spiral. The inappropriate behaviour with Allyson, and pretty much every other woman he meets, his lack of effort with his family and friends. He’s a mess.

The reason I was drawn to watching this film is because of its top notch cast, Sarandon and DeVito are as dependable as ever. They never turn in a bad performance, but it is also good to see younger talent such as Eisenberg and Poots performing strongly as well as excellent support from Fischer and Parker.

A Solitary Man is also well directed by the team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Two directors is not a common occurrence. You might expect that things would normally go wrong with a directing team. Directors are normally solitary themselves but here it works well, the cast even mention in the interviews that it was beneficial to have two directors.

This is one of Douglas’ best films in some years, and one of his best performances, not to say that his others haven’t been good. I loved him in several films such as Falling Down, The Game and The Wonder Boys. Douglas has always been a real film star. He portrays the character of Ben with believability and ease (no doubt some of this coming from personal experience with women). And as he has recently been diagnosed with throat cancer and reports say that his acting could soon come to an end it is certainly good to see him putting in some good performances of late.

Author : Kevin Stanley