LITTLE ROCK — Old guy and young woman. Sex and the fear of death. Are there four more hackneyed elements in the history of movies?
Probably not, which is why they make a fine excuse for a bit of dramedic cud-chewing in Solitary Man, yet more proof that Michael Douglas can do anything he pleases as long as he’s playing a jerk. What joy it is to watch the man slime himself on camera (Wall Street, Falling Down). For his latest turn, he’s an unctuous, aging and sex-obsessed man who messes up every part of his life he could possibly mess up.
Douglas plays Ben, a former New York car salesman whose weakness for young women and easy money got him in trouble with the wife and the law. The movie opens “about 6 1/2 years ago” in a doctor’s office in which Ben learns he has a heart irregularity. As the physician informs him he’ll need more testing, Douglas’ face freezes - it comes to a screeching halt, as if it’s crashed up against an immovable object - and we’re sold.
Flash forward to today, when Ben is an out-of-work businessman with a plan to get back in it. He also has a girlfriend (Mary-Louise Parker) with an 18-year-old daughter, Allyson (Imogen Poots), who becomes the modified Lolita figure in the tale of Ben’s downfall.
Directors Brian Koppelman (who also wrote the screenplay) and David Levien nail the execution, coaxing relaxed performances from Susan Sarandon as Ben’s exwife and Jesse Eisenberg as the decent kid who gives Ben a campus tour.
And although the movie’s end zone is visible from a long way off, Douglas brings us there with nettled desperation - and an unflagging charm that takes a turn toward creepy. Ben is a walking cliche. Douglas’ performance is not.
MovieStyle, Pages 36 on 07/30/2010