Set in and around the North Carolina city of Winston-Salem, Goodbye Solo is a decent middle-brow exercise in practical humanism. Nodding towards certain Iranian classics without dallying too long in the avant-garde, the film is worthwhile.
One evening, Solo (Souléymane Sy Savané), a jolly Senegalese taxi driver, picks up a taciturn old man named William (Red West). The passenger strikes an unusual deal with the cabbie: after paying a deposit and promising a significant fee, he suggests that Solo agree to drive him to a remote mountain outcrop in a few days’ time.
Before the trip can take place, however, the two men stumble towards an uneasy friendship. Solo, an endlessly positive character, introduces William to his grumpy wife and his ostentatiously charming stepdaughter. He drives the elderly misanthrope to the cinema and watches, confused, as he chats to the boy at the ticket desk.
Dealing in blurry, cool images without using any incidental music, director Ramin Bahrani allows the mysterious relationship to reveal its dynamics in an unhurried manner that never admits the slightest zephyr of melodrama. The final, slightly portentous sequences – taking place in a landscape that might have been carved by Casper David Friedreich – do imbalance the movie somewhat, but, for the most part, the film-makers keep things stark and uncomplicated.
It’s just a shame the main character is so unbearable. Played competently by Sy Savané, Solo is clearly a good man, but his exhausting positivity and inability to mind his own business fast become infuriating. He is, I think, supposed to be charming, but more than a few viewers will cheer when William finally socks him in the jaw.
