The Soloist
Here's a handy alternative to Fame - the flipside of all those idol dreams.
Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) is a prodigious talent – or was… a Julliard student once upon a time. So he tells LA Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr), though it’s a little hard to believe, seeing as how Nathaniel is about as down and out as you can get, a one-man circus who pulls a shopping trolley around town, conversing with Ludwig Van and practicing his art on the two strings left on his fiddle.
Cast details
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Robert Downey Jr.
Born: 04 Apr 1965
New York City, New YorkTop rated films View all Iron Man - BLU-RAY Version (2008) 
Iron Man (2007)
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Jamie Foxx
Born: 13 Dec 1967
Terrell, TexasTop rated films View all Law Abiding Citizen (2010)
Ray - HD DVD Version (2004) 
Lopez writes it up: A prodigious musical talent grows up in the ghetto, earns a scholarship to Julliard to play the cello, succumbs to schizophrenia, flunks out and winds up – 20 years later – playing for the birds. (‘The pigeons clap when they fly,’ Nathaniel explains.)
Readers are moved. Someone sends a cello to the paper, and in delivering it, Lopez becomes embroiled in Nathaniel’s life. This gift has strings attached, in more ways than one. He wants Nathaniel to move to a community shelter. He wants him to take meds, too resume his lessons… He wants to fix him.
Hollywood tends to do this stuff too easily; equating mental illness with artistic or spiritual transcendence and most often trivializing both in the process. Written by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) and directed by our own Joe Wright (Atonement), The Soloist isn’t immune to these bland temptations, but it’s smart enough to locate the cliché in the reporter’s own need for healing.
Lopez accepts the role of fairy godfather with some reluctance (and alarm, when Nathaniel takes to calling his savior his ‘God’), but we see that his own house is scarcely a home. His wife (Catherine Keener – also his editor) has gone. The kids are gone. Paintings are stacked against the walls. His belongings are in boxes – not so different from the junk in Nathaniel’s cart. Perhaps Lopez is The Soloist here?
At any rate, Downey plays him like a virtuoso. In the normal way of things this film should belong to Nathaniel/Jamie Foxx. He’s making beautiful music; wears a star-spangled wardrobe and flips between states of semi-autistic reiteration, periods of calm and fury.
The Soloist: Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx
Somehow, though, Foxx slips into a supporting role. That’s not necessarily the actor’s fault or even to the detriment of the movie, though flashbacks to his youth are relatively one-note. Joe Wright makes every effort to put us into Nathaniel’s head, but these expressionist flourishes are only sporadically effective. Whichever way the screenplay may have been weighted, I suspect Wright saw what he had in Downey and let him carry it.
He’s been sucking up the accolades for a long time now, and rightfully so, but until Iron Man most of Downey’s best work has been restricted to supporting roles (I’d pick out One Night Stand, Zodiac, Wonder Boys and A Scanner Darkly). This time he assumes centre stage through sheer focus. He’s unerringly truthful, never showy, not the cynical snark he could easily caricature. Under Downey’s influence The Soloist becomes a movie about a concerned middle-aged white man learning what commitment means.
There are other good things: Wright, who also made Pride and Prejudice is a gifted – if self-conscious – stylist, and he seizes on downtown LA as if nobody had filmed there before. More importantly, it’s a film you find yourself listening to intently. He holds back the music for long stretches, and makes it count (in one ostentatious sequence set in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Beethoven’s Third is rendered in a fantasia of abstract chroma).
Best of all, maybe, are the faces of the homeless Wright shares with us. Old faces. Odd, asymmetrical, sometimes bewildered faces… Faces the like of which we don’t see on movie screens too often, but vivid and painfully real in a way that – for whatever reason – eludes the heroic efforts of Jamie Foxx.
Wright lays everything on a bit thick, perhaps, even his restraint – but at least this movie acknowledges the gaping class and race divide so real in America and so invisible in Hollywood movies. It’s worth seeing for Downey at something near his peak, and hearing for Beethoven too.
Reviews
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Critics' reviews
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One can easily imagine the respective agents of Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Junior tut-tutting that The... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful members' reviews (3)
View all -
37 out of 37 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
A MUST SEE
2009/2010 will definitely be Robert Downey Jnr's. i hope he charges alot because his acting skills are amazing.
Now, this film is a definite must see. the story is very captivating and sad, the performances AMAZING. i really enjoyed this beautiful film from start to finish. it kept me glued to the big screen. i definitely recommend it
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- BorisK from Essex
- Posted 13 Aug 2009 11:34
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11 out of 11 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Not The Inspirational Movie You Would Expect
The film is titled 'The Soloist' and one will naturally assume that the film centers around Nathaniel Ayers, considering the fact that he is the one playing the violin alone in various parts of L.A. However, the film is really about Steve Lopez and how the relationship with Ayers changes him.
Robert Downey Jr. offers up a fine performance as Steve Lopez - his calm and subtle performance slowly bringing out the nature (and humor) of the character Lopez, who at first sees Nathaniel simply as an interesting subject to write about. However, the more time Steve spends with Nathaniel, the more Steve wants 'fix' him and to help him succeed as a musician. This proves to be a difficult task, for both Steve and Nathaniel, and their relationship becomes quite complex.
This film also introduces the idea that mentally ill people do better if they have someone, whom they trust, who takes an abiding interest in them. It also poses another very important question; should mentally ill people be forced to take medication? Would they have more freedom to decide correctly for themselves if they were first medicated? The film addresses this question but does not attempt to give an answer.
This could have been one of those 'Hollywood ending' movies where everybody gets saved and although the movie does underplay the seriousness of the conditon of schizophrenia, this is not one of those 'inspirational' movies. It doesnt offer salvation and a happy end. It's an honest portrayal of a relationship with a mentally ill person and just shows that having a friend to help along the way can make the burden of mental illness easier to bear. -
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Brilliant Film
Excellent film, not to be missed. If you liked Shine or Ray then you'll enjoy this film. Really strong performances and amotionally difficult to watch at times.
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Most recent members' reviews (2)
View all -
11 out of 11 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Not The Inspirational Movie You Would Expect
The film is titled 'The Soloist' and one will naturally assume that the film centers around Nathaniel Ayers, considering the fact that he is the one playing the violin alone in various parts of L.A. However, the film is really about Steve Lopez and how the relationship with Ayers changes him.
Robert Downey Jr. offers up a fine performance as Steve Lopez - his calm and subtle performance slowly bringing out the nature (and humor) of the character Lopez, who at first sees Nathaniel simply as an interesting subject to write about. However, the more time Steve spends with Nathaniel, the more Steve wants 'fix' him and to help him succeed as a musician. This proves to be a difficult task, for both Steve and Nathaniel, and their relationship becomes quite complex.
This film also introduces the idea that mentally ill people do better if they have someone, whom they trust, who takes an abiding interest in them. It also poses another very important question; should mentally ill people be forced to take medication? Would they have more freedom to decide correctly for themselves if they were first medicated? The film addresses this question but does not attempt to give an answer.
This could have been one of those 'Hollywood ending' movies where everybody gets saved and although the movie does underplay the seriousness of the conditon of schizophrenia, this is not one of those 'inspirational' movies. It doesnt offer salvation and a happy end. It's an honest portrayal of a relationship with a mentally ill person and just shows that having a friend to help along the way can make the burden of mental illness easier to bear. -
0 out of 1 person found this review helpful
Thought-provoking
I saw this film just today with a friend, and we discussed it a lot afterwards. We were both agreed that it gave plenty of food for thought.
It seems an unlikely story to come from Hollywood, given that it raises more questions than it answers and also has no easy 'feel-good' ending. However, I imagine we'll be talking about it for a while to come.
I had initially forgotten that the skid row lifestyle is probably familiar to Downey, given his past drug problems, and wonder if that was a factor in him taking the role. As with everything he does, it was excellently acted.
I was shocked that Los Angeles alone has 90,000 homeless on its streets (total population estimated at 10 million). I can't even begin to conceive of those numbers as individual people...
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37 out of 37 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
A MUST SEE
2009/2010 will definitely be Robert Downey Jnr's. i hope he charges alot because his acting skills are amazing.
Now, this film is a definite must see. the story is very captivating and sad, the performances AMAZING. i really enjoyed this beautiful film from start to finish. it kept me glued to the big screen. i definitely recommend it-
- BorisK from Essex
- Posted 13 Aug 2009 11:34
-
11 out of 11 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Not The Inspirational Movie You Would Expect
The film is titled 'The Soloist' and one will naturally assume that the film centers around Nathaniel Ayers, considering the fact that he is the one playing the violin alone in various parts of L.A. However, the film is really about Steve Lopez and how the relationship with Ayers changes him.
Robert Downey Jr. offers up a fine performance as Steve Lopez - his calm and subtle performance slowly bringing out the nature (and humor) of the character Lopez, who at first sees Nathaniel simply as an interesting subject to write about. However, the more time Steve spends with Nathaniel, the more Steve wants 'fix' him and to help him succeed as a musician. This proves to be a difficult task, for both Steve and Nathaniel, and their relationship becomes quite complex.
This film also introduces the idea that mentally ill people do better if they have someone, whom they trust, who takes an abiding interest in them. It also poses another very important question; should mentally ill people be forced to take medication? Would they have more freedom to decide correctly for themselves if they were first medicated? The film addresses this question but does not attempt to give an answer.
This could have been one of those 'Hollywood ending' movies where everybody gets saved and although the movie does underplay the seriousness of the conditon of schizophrenia, this is not one of those 'inspirational' movies. It doesnt offer salvation and a happy end. It's an honest portrayal of a relationship with a mentally ill person and just shows that having a friend to help along the way can make the burden of mental illness easier to bear. -
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Brilliant Film
Excellent film, not to be missed. If you liked Shine or Ray then you'll enjoy this film. Really strong performances and amotionally difficult to watch at times.
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Hits all the wrong notes
I wasn't looking for inspiration (thank God) but I was looking to be engaged and entertained, which is the point of any movie, regardless of subject matter. Instead I found myself fighting hard to stay in my seat and watch it to the end, having paid eight quid to be there.
Now I don't mind Hollywood manipulating me emotionally. I don't even mind too much when I can see them doing it. But I do mind when I can see them constantly attempting yet repeatedly failing to do it, as here.
Embarassing to watch at times. An extremely poor man's Shine. -
The Soloist.
I went to see this film, all ready to be inspired and the film to be very emotion racking.
However, even though it did make me want to go out and do better with my life. i felt like it never really took off. They wasn't anything in it that was super emotion racking. The film is good and the actors are good and everything bout the film seems to be perfect except, there was no defining point in the film where you realise what the motive of the Steve Lopez is. Maybe this was just because it was different from what i was expecting how ever i did feel rather disappointed i though it was going to be the movie of the year. where as it seems its just another to add to the collection.
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- PaulCannotThink from Sheffield
- Posted 12 Oct 2009 16:32
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0 out of 1 person found this review helpful
Thought-provoking
I saw this film just today with a friend, and we discussed it a lot afterwards. We were both agreed that it gave plenty of food for thought.
It seems an unlikely story to come from Hollywood, given that it raises more questions than it answers and also has no easy 'feel-good' ending. However, I imagine we'll be talking about it for a while to come.
I had initially forgotten that the skid row lifestyle is probably familiar to Downey, given his past drug problems, and wonder if that was a factor in him taking the role. As with everything he does, it was excellently acted.
I was shocked that Los Angeles alone has 90,000 homeless on its streets (total population estimated at 10 million). I can't even begin to conceive of those numbers as individual people...
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Critics' reviews
-
One can easily imagine the respective agents of Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Junior tut-tutting that The... read more on Time Out