There is always real sincerity behind the twitchy, sardonic facade
of Robert Downey Jr., and that helps sell The Soloist. Downey’s
character, LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, writes about and
befriends Jamie Foxx’s Nathanial Anthony Ayres Jr., a homeless man with
a gift for music. Downey’s sincerity conveys the frustration of
assisting someone like Ayres, who may not even want or need the help
Lopez thinks he should get.
The Soloist asks interesting questions about the autonomy of
the mentally ill and homeless, and what treatment will really help
people who make a life on the streets. It questions what kinds of role
a man like Lopez could play in the life of a man like Ayres and then
wonders aloud if he’s better off in the end.
The gooey message at the center of The Soloist is that
simple, sustained friendship does more for a man like Ayres than any
one grand gesture. It’s a worthy moral and The Soloist, with its
solid script, performances and sharp direction—Joe Wright finds
poetry in the concrete pile of Los Angeles—is the ideal vessel for
it.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.