"Goodbye Solo"

Saw this tonight at the Shattuck Theater. It's a visually impressive film with strong performances, but it sets a bar it ultimately fails to achieve.

Garrulous cabbie Solo meets taciturn William, who wants a ride and nothing else. Solo, a Senegalese immigrant who seems to have made many connections in his time in the U.S., is frustrated by the silence of the man he calls "big dog." It comes out fairly quickly that William wants to commit suicide, and he wants a ride from Solo to the mountaintop where he will do the deed.

"Goodbye Solo" promises a penetrating look at isolation and connection, but ultimately falls back on the typical cinematic take on these matters: Connection is the answer, whether with family or with a talkative cabbie. William is seen sympathetically but clearly treated as the less evolved human for not wanting to share his inner thoughts so readily.

I hate talking to strangers and I would never tell a guy like Solo my middle name, let alone my motivation for killing myself. I walked out of the theater frustrated, not because the movie agreed with me, but because it doesn't address the fact that I'm probably not alone in my relative reticence.