November 28, 2009 -- “Goodbye Solo” is a story of a clash between an optimist and a pessimist. The optimist wants the American dream, family, house, good job. The pessimist is dead set on killing himself. They become very unlikely friends and their stormy relationship eventually arrives at an uneasy détente.

The optimist, Solo (played by Souleymane Sy Savane of “The Day of My Wedding”) is a cab driver from Africa who picks up the elderly pessimist, William (Red West of “Glory Road”) one night. William offers Solo $1,000 dollars to drive him from Winston-Salem North Carolina to a rock jutting out over a high cliff called “Blowing Rock” (an actual place) on October 20 (about two weeks in the future), when the fall colors will be spectacular. Solo thinks William is joking at first, since it is his birthday. “You want me to take you two hours from here on top of some mountain where you are not meeting nobody and you don't want to come back ... What are you going to go camping? Are you going to chill with the trees and the birds ... Are you going to fly away? You're not going to jump, right?” Solo looks at William in the back seat, who is dead serious, and continues with “You're not going to do that. Tomorrow's going to be a better day, you know.”

The problem trying to deal with a pessimist is you can never convince them that tomorrow is going to be a better day. If a pessimist wants to kill himself, you are not going to be able to use hope as an effective argument. Solo's problems dealing with William are just beginning. Solo, being an optimist, does his best to help William out of his funk by trying to be his friend. He lets William stay at his house one night and tries to find out what is bothering him. Meanwhile, Solo's own life is on the skids. His girlfriend throws him out of the house. Letting William spend the night didn't help that situation. Solo wants to become an airline flight attendant, but his girlfriend Quiera (Carmen Leyva) thinks that is just a silly dream. She seems more of a pessimist, and fairly un-American, too. It is not the American way to be content with your current job if you don't like that job. The American way is to strive to better yourself and better your income, too.

Solo finds out that William may have a grandson working at a local theater where he hangs out. He wants to reunite William with his grandson, but William isn't having anything to do with that. Solo doesn't understand why American families can't be more like African families. In Africa, he says, families live together. In America, families live apart. When William finds out Solo has been poking around in his past and researching his grandson, he gets very angry and tells Solo to go away. Later, they come to a sort of understanding. Meanwhile, he closes his bank account, sells his apartment and starts giving away his remaining few possessions as October 20 draws closer. In contrast to this, a son is born to Solo, who recently celebrated his own birthday. Birth and death, opposite ends of life, are at the forefront of this film.

The problem I have with this movie is the problem I have with a lot of movies about suicide. This movie, like a lot of other movies of this ilk, tends to make suicide look neat, tidy and painless. Movies like this portray suicide victims as people who are intelligent, sensitive and just too damn good for this cruel world. William is gruff on the outside, but soft on the inside, as his personal journal shows. He may be observant, thoughtful and sensitive, but he's also old and expendable. Movies like this tend to encourage viewers to commit suicide themselves, and that is downright criminal. The trouble is, most films of this sort are written and directed by people who are pessimists. I used to be a pessimist when I was a teenager -- teen angst, I suppose. Fortunately, I outgrew it. This film rates a B. It is way overrated by pessimistic reviewers.

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Copyright © 2009 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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