Solitary Man (2010)

Michael Douglas is amazing. In the opening of “Solitary Man,” he provides a lesson in acting. He is Ben Kalmen, a wildly successful car salesman -- happy, dressed in a suit that shouts relaxed and confident. He’s set to golf with his pal, the family doctor. Ben is all smiles. Then doc dishes bad news. It’s your heart, something is wrong. The camera moves in and the sound goes down, and you can see Douglas play out every fiber of a man’s crashing soul -– shock, fear, desperation and panic. We jump six months. Ben has destroyed his family. He drinks. He picks up woman -- willing, desperate or just there. He would rather explode than flame out. “Man” is uneasy, funny and smart –- it offers no judgments or answers. Susan Sarandon is the painfully saint ex-wife, Jesse Eisenberg is a college naive, and Imogen Poots the 18-year-old that Ben beds. Told you it wasn't easy. The ending is perfect. B+