Melodious Soloist a Symphonic Delight
Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) is one of the few journalists working for his Los Angeles paper that isn’t in danger of losing his job. Where his ex-wife and editor Mary Westin (Catherine Keener) has the dubious task of having to show her former employees the door while still trying to put out a quality product people will read, the popular columnist only has to find an interesting new story to wax poetic about.
Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. make music in DreamWorks' The Soloist
Granted, sometimes that’s easier said than done. Lately Lopez can’t find anything he wants to write about, even using a recent spill while riding his bicycle as subject matter until he can find something more concrete to immerse himself in.
He finds inspiration in the form of homeless street musician Nathaniel Ayers, Jr. (Jamie Foxx), a one-time Julliard student virtually destroyed by mental illness. The two slowly begin to develop a complex friendship, each discovering something in the other allowing them to face demons they’d been avoiding for quite some time.
Atonement and Pride and Prejudice director Joe Wright’s The Soloist was at one point thought of as a shoe-in for Oscar glory during the closing months of 2008. Suddenly, only a few weeks away from its release date, DreamWorks and Paramount suddenly moved the film to April of this year. Immediately questions about its quality hit the blogosphere, everyone assuming the reasons behind this shift had everything to do with something malodorous and insignificant.
In my opinion those early assumptions are wrong. While not the masterwork the filmmaker’s previous works were, this is still a strong and inspiring motion picture acted to perfection by the two leads. It is a symphony of emotional release, the weight and majesty of life’s miseries and joys all on vibrant display. While admittedly not a great film it is still a very good one, Oscar-nominee Susannah Grant’s (Erin Brokovich) subtle screenplay (based on Lopez’s book) earning my tears genuinely and without any saccharine or facile posturing.
There are bumps. There are times I wasn’t quite sure if Wright was more interested in the world surrounding Lopez and Ayers than he was with the characters themselves. Filming in many of the actual locations and using a lot of real-life mentally ill homeless people as extras, the director has created a milieu that drips in authenticity. It gives things an air of authenticity it otherwise would like, the whole thing having a documentary-like verisimilitude that’s absolutely intoxicating.
Unfortunately, while this is a highly admirable trait it also had the misfortune of taking my eyes away from the central storyline. I became fascinated by the extras, interested in their plight and those trying to assist them. Seeing them sitting in the round talking in group felt like an eye-opening glance into a world very few of us take the time or make the effort to see, Lopez and Ayers insignificant when compared to everything the rest of them are going through.
This seems like an odd problem, I know, but the fact I was at times more interested in the periphery than I was in the central, and I’m assuming this isn’t a response Wright and company were going for. But it does hurt, sometimes a lot, dramatic missteps here and there during the penultimate moments far more apparent because of it.
Still, I liked this movie, sometimes so much so I was awestruck by it. Both Downey and Foxx are downright incredible, the former so good I dare say he comes close to blowing his Academy Award-nominated performance in Tropic Thunder right out of the water. Both men find something inside their respective characters that feels uniquely significant, neither going over the top nor showing off in a way that would overshadow the other.
I also liked the way Wright refuses to turn towards the cliché to tell his relatively familiar story. The players maybe different but that doesn’t mean we haven’t seen much of this before, films as diverse as Rain Man and Resurrecting the Champ covering somewhat similar territory. Yet the director keeps that documentary feel start to finish, and other than a brief phantasmagorical foray into Fantasia-like whirligig by and large the movie has a you-are-there veracity impossible to resist.
Did DreamWorks and Paramount make a mistake in moving this one into this year? It’s hard to say, but truth be told I can honestly say I liked it just as much as the majority of last year’s Best Picture nominees, including eventual winner Slumdog Millionaire. Be that as it may, I think audiences that choose to take the time to discover this one are going to be pleasantly surprised, The Soloist a sometimes virtuoso performance that’s a harmonious symphony of enchantment.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
Additional Links
