The Soloist

OPENING: 04/24/2009

STUDIO: DreamWorks

RUN TIME: 117 min

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

SOUNDTRACK:

The Charge
No one changes anything by playing it safe.

Opening Statement
I became an instant fan of director Joe Wright in 2005 when I saw his adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Wright managed to take a story I had never quite warmed up to and make it an intensely romantic and emotionally involving cinematic experience. He impressed me even further in 2007 with the masterful Atonement, which tells the tragic story of two young lovers in World War II England. Wright’s latest feature is The Soloist, his first modern-day film and his first American film. Is it another triumph for the director, or are most critics correct when they claim he has taken his first tumble?

Facts of the Case
The film is based on a true story chronicled by LA Times writer Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), a columnist searching for a human interest subject to write about. One day, he runs into a very odd-looking homeless man (Jamie Foxx) on the street. The man, who introduces himself as Nathanial Ayers, is wearing a variety of peculiar clothes, carrying a shopping cart full of junk, and playing a violin with only two strings. He doesn’t seem to be completely there, often ignoring things people say to him and spewing off rambling and semi-nonsensical stream-of-consciousness rants. Lopez might have just walked away and forgotten about him, but two things caught his attention. First, Nathanial is actually quite a good violin player, considering the broken instrument he is working with. Second, Nathanial mentions in passing that he once attended Julliard. Curious about whether there is any validity to this claim, Lopez calls Julliard and does a little fact-checking. Indeed, it seems, once upon a time, Nathanial was a well-regarded educated man. So what is he doing on the streets?

The Evidence
It sounds like the setup to an inspirational film, doesn’t it? Indeed, the trailers for The Soloist have marketed it as the story of a journalist who helps a troubled but brilliant musician get back on his feet. The trailers are misleading. Nathanial is not merely a troubled man, he is a man who has completely succumbed to madness. Sure, his musical skills are remarkable and he’s capable of engaging in a coherent conversation. Even so, his mind is trapped in a series of tangled turmoils too deep and complex for an ordinary human being to climb out of without suffering great damage. This serves as a source of constant frustration for Steve, whose early approach to Nathanial is akin to that of a repairman coming to fix a leaky roof. He’s convinced if he can get Nathanial some proper medication and off the streets, everything will be okay.

Alas, The Soloist isn’t A Beautiful Mind. There doesn’t seem to be a solution on the horizon for Nathanial’s schizophrenia, and many of the attempts to “make his life better” backfire horrifically. Love in the form of friendship may not be all that Nathanial needs, but it’s the only thing he’s going to accept. Steve’s attempts to deal with this reality represent some of the high points in the film. It’s difficult to adjust to the idea of giving someone unconditional love and support, despite the awareness that it probably isn’t going to go very far towards helping them recover from their problems.

One of Wright’s more controversial decisions was the choice to use real mentally ill and homeless people as supporting cast members. Some claim he is exploiting them, which I’ll leave it up to you to decide. I do think having them in the film adds a considerable layer of reality that many of us see every day on the streets but almost never on the big screen. Wright’s direction is heartfelt and gritty, achieving a cinematic poetry both in the concert hall and on the graffiti-laden streets of Los Angeles. Foxx and Downey are as effective as you would expect these two fine actors to be, and composer Dario Marianelli expertly utilizes the music of Beethoven (Nathanial’s favorite classical composer, and mine too) as the basis for his original score.

Jamie Foxx is quite good, but one can honestly tell his performance is a slightly romanticized and over-dramatized version of reality seemingly designed to garner award nominations. The moments that really affected me are those in which the screen is filled with those real people who are struggling. There is nothing wrong with wanting to “fix” the lives of such troubled individuals, and I applaud those good citizens who provide them with better food, a warm place to sleep, medicine, and counseling. However, The Soloist suggests love demonstrated in the form of friendship and human kindness is a need too often overlooked.

I may make the film sound rather sentimental and I suppose it is, aside from the fact it acknowledges there are no easy answers to the kinds of problems people like Nathanial face. It isn’t a perfect film, and sometimes it goes a bit far in attempting to push our emotions. Even so, the successes are far more noteworthy than the failures, and what happiness is found in the end is certainly earned.

Closing Statement
The Soloist has the required combination of honesty and emotional pull to potentially inspire audience members to do more for the homeless in their community. I often roll my eyes at “message movies” for trying to shove self-righteousness down my throat, but I responded to this one and certainly recommend it.

The Verdict
8/10