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Movie review: “The Soloist”
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
In the City of Angels, an L.A. Times feature columnist makes a valiant effort to become a guardian angel for a homeless, mentally-ill man; getting an eye-opening lesson in return on the limits and limitations of Good Samaritanism.
The Soloist is based on the work of Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.), who turned his Points West column about Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) into a book, here adapted for the big screen by Susannah Grant.
According to the film’s postscript, there are thousands of homeless in Los Angeles. What is not noted is how many of these are suffering like Nathaniel from conditions like schizophrenia. Like many of his fellow Angelinos, Lopez has seen, but not seen; heard, but not heard, the conditions and voices of the city’s homeless. It’s not clear whether Lopez has ever done a column on the homeless; but after seeing the source of quavering violin music coming from a shopping cart piled high with homeless detritus, Lopez’s story-smelling nose goes on yellow alert.
“I apologize for my appearance; I’ve had a few setbacks…,” says the garishly attired, verbally rambling man. Lopez is able to pick out from the stream-of-consciousness jabber that this lost soul once roamed the famed halls of New York’s prestigious Julliard Music School.
Journalism skills kicking in, Lopez tracks down the back story that includes a sister who believed Nathaniel’s musical talent was “a way out;” and confirmation from the school that Nathaniel had, indeed, been a student, but dropped out the end of his second year.
More than just work from the beginning, Steve’s columns on Nathaniel have a compelling personal hook to them—inspiring an elderly woman to donate a cello her arthritic hands can no longer play. Suddenly, Nathaniel isn’t just grist for a Pulitzer Prize mill; isn’t just someone to be pitied and shunned—but somebody Lopez could possibly pull back from the brink of mental annihilation and physical degradation.
Lopez’s well-meaning concern evolves into full-blown fervor envisioning Nathaniel off the streets utilizing the services of a community center serving skid row; taking cello lessons; presenting a recital at no less than Disney Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and moving into the apartment rooms of a converted motel.
A violent dose of reality persuades Lopez that maybe the story has been more in the service of Steve Lopez than Nathaniel Ayers.
Although the sounds of an orchestra playing Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony are enough to send Nathaniel into a state of bliss, they are nothing to him compared with the sounds of the spheres he can hear from the open air of L.A.’s curbs. What is best for Nathaniel, and what obligation is Lopez under not to turn him and the other men and women of the streets into a side show for the edification of the L.A. Times ever-shrinking customer base?
With the universal language of music easing the discomfort most have about the mentally ill and the living conditions of human beings who have been stripped of almost all the accoutrements of worth, The Soloist is a lyrical, if sometimes embarrassingly elegiac, portrait of the power of being there for our fellow man on his terms.
The Soloist is based on the work of Steve Lopezand stars Robert Downey, Jr., who turned his Points West column about Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) into a book.
