The Soloist (2009)
Directed by Joe Wright
Written by Susannah Grant
Starring Robert Downey Jr, Jamie Foxx, Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander
Release Date April 24th, 2009
Published April 23rd, 2009
The sound of Beethoven played oddly but beautifully on a violin with just two strings echoed through the stone and steel canyons of Los Angeles and altered the life of journalist Steve Lopez forever. That is the very simply, very basic premise of The Soloist which accumulates the sum of Lopez's real life experiences on the big screen.
In The Soloist Robert Downey Jr plays Steve Lopez as a wounded soul. Literally wounded, when we meet him his is soon flat on his back with an ugly road rash following a bike accident. Subsequently, writing a column about his accident earns Steve the requisite sympathy of his readers and a day of peace from his editor/ex-wife playewd Catherine Keener.
The sympathy lasts about a day before he needs a new story to keep the wolves at bay, The Soloist is set in 2005 but reflects the modern newspaper business. Lopez finds his next big story in Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr (Jamie Foxx) a street musician battling schizophrenia. Encountering Nathaniel playing a two string violin and hearing him mention something about Julliard, Lopez's reporter instints are awakened.
Indeed, Nathaniel did attend Julliard in 1970 but dropped out when mental illness began to take hold. The story Lopez writes inspires people wanting to help Nathaniel. One older woman sends along her old Cello for Lopez to give to Nathaniel. This keeps Steve returning to Nathaniel's life and slowly finding himself compelled to take responsibility for him even as he himself is not one who has been successful with relationships of any kind.
Directed by Joe Wright, Oscar nominated for Atonement, The Soloist tends to underline points a little too much. With Steve's bike accident one can infer the hand of the director placing Steve's scarred emotional state on Steve's face to make sure we get a visual of how Steve feels inside, scarred.
Much of Jamie Foxx's Nathaniel act is pitched to the classic magic negro stereotype. That is the type where a salt of the earth black man helps a well off white man learn a valuable lesson. That may be a little simple and slightly unfair given the non-fiction nature of The Soloist but it is no less there.
Jamie Foxx does his best to fight off the typicalities of the stereotype role and I did love his commitment to showing Nathaniel's tortured psyche and how music briefly chased away the voices but, as I said, Director Joe Wright cannot resist underlining even the most well communicated point or unceasing cliche and Foxx is undercut by that approach.
The Soloist is for the most part about Robert Downey Jr. and his continuing to grow as a star. Downey has always been talented but as he showed in Iron Man, Downey has that kind of 'what will he do next' charisma that makes you want to follow his next move.
The Steve Lopez played by Downey doesn't need road rash to communicate his wounded soul. Downey conveys psychic wound with effortless ease. Watch Downey resist Foxx's Nathaniel. Watch him sense a good story but have to force himself to remain only an observer and how that approach has hampered each and every relationship in his life.
So much of what Downey does is not in the screenplay but rather in his manner, in his eyes. One is left to wonder if Joe Wright saw what I saw or not. Judging from the way Wright underlines even the quiet, subtle moments of Downey's performance, I guess not.
The Soloist is in many ways exceptional, especially in the performance of Robert Downey Jr, but the proceedings are too often bogged down by Joe Wright's need to make sure the audience gets it. It in this case is how uplifting the idea of Steve Lopez helping Nathaniel Ayers is and how brave Nathaniel is in attempting to make a life for himself through music and despite his illness. We get it Joe. We get it.
See it for Downey Jr, if you're a fan.
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