Never Can Say ‘Goodbye’

The funny thing about “Goodbye Solo” is that although it’s wonderfully revealing, all the information we get about everybody in this movie is pretty scarce.

The film merely wants us to observe how these characters act and what they do, leaving the issue of why they act this way a torturous mystery. Not only does the movie have enough faith in the intelligence of its audience to let us make our own judgments about its characters, but it has as much faith in the depth of the characters themselves, and it knows that they’re innovative enough to create their own drama without having a formula dictate every move they make. Instead, the movie focuses on how peoples’ emotions stand on a bedrock of secrets, and how the things we’ve done in the past affect what we’ll do in the future.

The secrets that drive most of the drama belong to one of its heroes, a man who looks about 70 whose name is William (Red West). He makes a proposal to a Senegalese taxi driver named Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane): If he’ll drive William to the top of a mountain in Blowing Rock National Park in 10 days, he will pay Solo $1,000, no questions asked. Before he can even think about the money, Solo asks why he’s offering it. When William tells him that he meant what he said when he told him “no questions asked,” Solo reflects that he didn’t say anything about returning.

Although their dialogue dances around the subject in wide arcs, Solo seems to realize that William is contemplating suicide. He agrees to take William wherever he wants to go over the next 10 days, and quietly tries to make him change his mind about killing himself. He takes him to a local dive to chase after girls and play billiards, and even introduces him to his stepdaughter, Alex (Diana Franco Galindo). She enjoys William’s company and the feeling seems mutual, but he never tells her about the deal he made with her stepfather, and Solo’s attempts to make a difference in his life aren’t getting him anywhere.

This might sound like an indie film for highbrow movie buffs, but it’s actually more accessible than mainstream audiences might think. It has a great deal of love and respect for all of its characters, and doesn’t stick them into a fantastic story that they can’t keep up with. Everyone feels free to act naturally and be themselves, which might explain why the audience can relate to them so well. All the movie wants to do is see how they connect, which isn’t easy for characters who know so little about each other.

Some people might be able to relate to what these characters are going through, but the plot wouldn’t have been able to hold the movie down by itself. “Goodbye Solo” depends on the humanity of its characters, and it has a great deal of sympathy for the choices they make. We might not understand everything they do by the time it’s over, but they don’t need to be understood – we only need to accept them.