The Soloist is a mine-field of emotional story lines and social/political issues. These elements make for a film that is thoroughly watchable with a story that is perhaps hard to tell because it is so complicated to deal with.
Like Russell Crowe’s character in State of Play, Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is a journalist for a major newspaper faced with the overwhelming statistics of declining readership. There is no sign that Lopez appears to be overwhelmed with the prospect of the written word vanishing from the face of the earth though. He appears to have enough to worry about coming up with ideas for his column “Points West”, while managing a relationship with his estranged ex-wife.
One day when Steve is wandering around downtown LA, he comes across a man. At first glance he seems like any of the thousands of homeless wandering the Los Angeles streets, but Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (Jamie Foxx) is different. Accompanied with a shopping cart that contains his entire life, and slowly moving his bow over his two-stringed violin, we learn that this man perhaps had a fantastic fall from greatness. It is clear that Nathaniel is mentally unstable. He talks in ways in which he probably hears his music: A continuous flow of thoughts sometimes unfinished and unrelated. Steve sees potential in him, if even for merely a story subject at first, but a relationship quickly grows.
With a little research, Steve discovers that Nathaniel was once enrolled at the Juliard School of Music but dropped out after two years. When Steve runs a piece on Nathaniel in the Times, a reader sends a brand new cello to the paper in hopes that Nathaniel will be able to aquire it. Steve uses the new instrument as a way to coax Nathaniel into opening up his life and his story.
What Steve is trying to gain from this relationship is never quite certain, but with great tenacity he tries to find a way for Nathaniel to be healthy. He makes the tragic assumption that by getting Nathaniel back into society, his demons will be released. Nathaniel has the kind of mental illness that could probably be drastically reduced with proper medication, but is an empty apartment with daily meds and a normal 9 to 5 the kind of freedom that he really needs? The film dances around this and many other questions surrounding the issue of homelessness and how every-day working Americans try to respond to it. This does pose a problem by film’s end as we are not sure exactly how to think or feel, yet this seems to be a story that demands that kind of attention from us as an audience.
The performances here are just what they need to be and nothing more. Foxx plays the part of madness with a kind of reserved tone that gives Nathaniel grace and depth. He hides behind his music and the elaborate costumes he wears on the streets from day to day. Downey Jr is easy to sympathize with even if as our hero he wears the badge a little sloppily. The wonderful Catherine Keener does a fine job as Steve’s “editor” and former wife, although she is grossly under-utilized in this film.
The film’s plot may be a little unfocused but the script seems to make amends for this. When Lopez is approached with the idea of adapting Nathaniel’s story into a book he dolefully resists. There is much more to the story than is able to be expressed on the written page. Quite simply, it’s complicated.
3.5/5
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