Goodbye Solo

Souleyman Savane is a natural. His taxi driver character is the focus of the film and in spite of Savane's complete lack of acting experience he carries the movie with his beautiful, expressive face and the warmth, goodness and simple joie de vivre of his character's nature and, one suspects, Mr. Savane's.

The scenes of unexceptional small city life match up right for this story and the scenes toward the end in the Great Smokies are almost as transcendent as they are in person.

At 90 minutes it is the perfect length for a movie whose central predicament is made plain from the start and it's resolution never really in doubt. An understandable determination to die by one man inspires renewal in another.