Goodbye Solo (2008)
Goodbye Solo(USA) Directed by Ramin Bahrani Written by Ramin Bahrani Starring Soulymane Sy Savane; Red West; Carmen Leyva; Diana Franco Galinda
Ramin Bahrani, an American of Iranian ethnicity, has produced another quality offering of exquisite minimalism. His two previous films, Man Push Cart & Chop Shopwere both low budgeters set in NYC. Bahrani locates Goodbye Soloin his hometown of Winston Salem NC. While not exactly a hot bed of film activity, the area has produced a few other filmmakers of recent note like Jody Hill and David Gordon Green. Bahrani is a purist, concerned with telling straightforward, deceptively simple tales about poor people struggling to survive. His realist work mirrors that of The Dardennes, Ken Loach, and relative newcomers like fellow Americans Kelly Reichardt and the team of Anna Bolden and Ryan Fleck. Solo (Soulymane Sy Savane) is a Senegalsese cab driver with dreams of becoming a flight attendant. Despite the modest trappings of his life situation, he’s seemingly a pretty happy person (reminiscent of the character Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky), prone to smiling, optimism, and calling everyone “big man”. Still, his relationship with his strongly opinionated pregnant Mexican wife Quiera (Carmen Leyva) is in trouble, despite his affection for her precocious nine year old daughter Alex (Diana Franco Galindo). Quiera can’t understand his desire to be anything other than a cab driver, and presses him to keep driving and bringing in the money, while Solo seems unable to fully explain to her his dissatisfaction and need for change. Bahrani wastes no time as in the first scene in the film we meet William (Red West), a red faced, ornery oldster who offers to pay Solo $1,000 to drive him to Blowing Rock. Solo is immediately suspicious that William is contemplating suicide, and over the course of the next few weeks attempts to insinuate himself into William’s life, pressing him for details and trying to navigate his way past the man’s gruff, even hostile exterior. As usual, Bahrani casts mostly non-pros, including several actual cab drivers operating out of the working stand seen in the film. Seventy two year old West, calling to mind the late actor Richard Farnsworth, was a former running partner of Elvis’. Though West has appeared in smaller roles over the years, this is his first star turn. Despite a few awkward moments, Bahrani squeezes a lot out of his cast, particularly from the deeply expressive, bloodshot eyes of newcomer Savane. A thoughtful, well measured work from one of the best new faces in cinema.