There is a depressing profundity to Michael Douglas’ latest film, SOLITARY MAN. It plays like a commentary on the actor’s on-screen personas more than anything else. And when placed in that context, the film works well enough.
In SOLITARY MAN, Michael Douglas plays Ben Kalmen an aging disgraced businessman who spends his nights and most of his days bedding down women half his age. His only confidant is his daughter (played by Jenna Fischer), whose husband has begun to object to the unhealthy father/child relationship. Ben’s latest girlfriend (played by Mary-Louise Parker) is a cold New York socialite who has money and power but finds utility in trotting out Ben on behalf of her worldly college aged daughter. And Ben’s alluring ex-wife (a ravishing Susan Sarandon) is presently single, happy but wanting.
Ben Kalmen is as self-destructive as they come. Not addicted to sex as much as to feeling good all the time, he seems to relish his wrongness—it is part of his irreverent charm. But age is beginning to creep up on Ben, a baby aspirin each morning followed by cab fare for his latest overnight cutie is the continuing routine. And the money is running out.
Michael Douglas is very good playing Ben Kalmen. It is a performance far better than the movie, but this is mainly because Douglas made his career with this kind of role—he’s so delicious bad. Perhaps his best performance was in 2000’s WONDERBOYS, the Curtis Hanson film in which Douglas played Professor Grady Tripp, a writer with a particular type of writer’s block. It wasn’t that Professor Tripp couldn’t write, it was that he couldn’t stop writing one particular book. And so SOLITARY MAN, a movie with two directors one of which penned the screenplay, tells a story that similarly doesn’t know how to end. And sadly, this makes the film a bit tiresome as it grinds forward. Ben Kalmen is suffering and suffering and the movie makes us feel that with frustrating results.
Still it’s sure good to seen Danny DeVito working with Douglas again. The two worked together in DeVito’s excellent THE WAR OF THE ROSES way back in 1989 and share plenty of quality screen time here. Their exchanges are never as wince inducing as the dialogue because the two actors are so comfortable with one another. And they deserve a better movie worthy of their chemistry.
What little we see of Susan Sarandon almost saves the entire movie. As Ben’s well-adjusted ex-wife Nancy, Sarandon brings a sultry experience the character needs. The performance reminded me of her work in that 1992 Paul Schrader film LIGHT SLEEPER. I can’t get enough of Sarandon in roles that trade heavily on her built in worldliness. She has a body that breathes sexuality here on subtle display making her scenes with Douglas deeper and more interesting. Too bad that SOLITARY MAN can’t figure out how to make those elements play better into a satisfying conclusion.
But I said earlier that the film works well enough when looked at in the context of Michael Douglas’ career. I’m not sure how much longer Douglas can keep doing this kind of thing effectively. And Ben Kalmen’s impending breakdown in SOLITARY MAN mirrors the trajectory of Douglas’ career. The film’s final moments are thought-provoking mainly because of the road ahead for the actor and less because of the character the actor is inhabiting. And that’s also why the movie doesn’t work because when the credits roll you may find yourself caring more about the future of Michael Douglas and less about what Ben Kalmen will do next.
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