The Soloist

I’m a big sap. After seeing The Soloist this weekend, I heard mixed reviews. Many people had read the book written by the real Steve Lopez “The Soloist: A Lost Dream, and Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music,” so I think they had more of a right to be biased. I couldn’t really tell you where they elaborated or what the changed or if the tone was any different which probably allowed me to enjoy it a lot more. On top of most journalist just being avid readers, well they are journalist like the character played by Robert Downey Jr., and in that case, many already knew the story if not the man himself. What I did feel was the story was beautifully today, the acting superb, and though not an Oscar-winning story, I definitely appreciated the emotion director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) attempted to invoke.

If you were to watch the previews, you’d probably think that the story was about finding oneself and an purpose, redemption and an overall uplifting tale of overcoming obstacles. The truth is, this is not the story that leaves you feeling happy, like all is right in the world, but that’s what touched me so much. It isn’t a story meant to be a commentary on homelessness or mental illness, two causes close to my heart. It’s about two individuals’ very different struggles, and the fact that life is simply not perfect, no matter how you try, what you achieve, and especially how many times you fail.

Downey plays Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist who’s marriage to his editor has fallen apart and is struggling to find THAT story. (You know the one that I am talking about.) While his life falls apart around him, so does the newspaper he works for since people are getting laid off left and right. One day, when fortune finds its way to Lopez, he runs into Nathaniel Ayers, played by Jamie Foxx, playing a two-string violin. He’s rambles incoherently, where’s clothes that look like he stole them from to put nicely “street ladies,” and he clearly could be schizophrenic. One of the most endearing and funny moments is Lopez trying to interview Ayers like he would a normal person, only to get nothing he could understand and turn into a coherent story.
Through well placed and timed flashbacks, what we, the audience, and Lopez do learn is that Ayers used to be a student at Juilliard, studying the cello, until the voices in his head prevented him from being able to live normally in society. His life led him to Skid Row, one of the harshest and most populated homeless areas in Los Angeles, where his talents are wasted but apparently he still seems to be positive about the place he is in life.

And that’s the beauty of this story. The Hollywood way, the Oscar-worthy way, is to make you feel pity for Ayers, to comment on how horrible homelessness is in America, especially Los Angeles and how little we do for the community of our own peers. Using the backdrop of the City of Angels, where people drive so much, Wright could have focused on how the homeless population appears to be hidden, unlike in Manhattan or Chicago, but he choose to tell the story from the inside out, not the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, one of the largest parts of the story is Lopez’s struggle with wanting to do more, but having to come to terms with the fact that no matter how much you may want something to change, you may not be able to make it all better.

On top of that, Foxx portrays a man who is not to be pitied because even through the madness he knows who he is and that he is in control of his life, no matter how out of control it can seem or get. And that’s what Wright achieves here. He makes the story not about people with mental health through the story of one man, but about one man with an affliction. And it’s much less about homelessness and mental health than it is about an interesting friendship and an ability to see people for what they really are or truly seeing people who have always been in front of you for the first time.

And the most surprising part of it all for most viewers will be that it isn’t at all about Ayers being saved or Lopez doing something good unlike so many people in the world. Sure Lopez wanted to help him, get him medication and make his life better, but really it was about Ayers inspiring Lopez and showing him passion, something he’d obviously lost a long time ago.

Like I said earlier, I know others have their gripes with this film, but for me Wright didn’t try to make it anything more than a delightfully told story, centered around two very different people who for whatever reason form a bond. And that’s beautiful. I warned you, I’m a sap.