Review of Solitary Man (2009) by Jordon J — 12 Sep 2010

I saw this modern day womanizer flick just before "Get Low", a century old lesson on the evils of adultery. The hundred years between the two movies make their thematic similarities all the more intriguing, especially the shunning, albeit largely self-imposed, from friends and family, with both films offering the promise of some reconciliation and redemption in the end.

Confessing your sins to one or to many also provides a therapeutic release to both protagonists in each yarn. I think the two films might have switched titles, although the song "Solitary Man" would have been anachronistic in a movie set in the early 1900s.

But enough of that, in the Michael Douglas film, his Ben Kelman utters one of the best lines, that I've ever heard, to his ex-wife in rationalizing his never ending alimony obligations: "what can I say? You put in the years.

" Now that's a pretty classy line if you ignore the fact that he was then broke which made it pretty easy for him to be so magnanimous. But if I ever get the chance, as long as I'm broke then too, I'll tell my ex the same thing.