Movie: The Soloist
Music movies have a tendency to be sappy. Thankfully, "The Soloist" avoids schmaltz by glamorizing very little and addressing a dizzying array of social issues: homelessness, mental illness, lost dreams, philanthropy, drug addiction, classism, the press, and more. Unfortunately, "The Soloist" tends to divide its attention too evenly between these and more mundane distractions. Subsequently, it loses the opportunity to play on what would've been a strong melodic core.
"The Soloist" is based off a true story. L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) has a chance meeting with a mentally ill street musician, Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx). Lopez discovers that Ayers is a dropout from the prestigious Julliard School of Music, and begins writing columns about Ayers' struggles. Lopez has a difficult time defining his relationship with Ayers, who doesn't want psychiatric care or a permanent residence.
It would've been easy to rewrite history, as movies are so fond of doing, in favor of a tidy story where Lopez rescues Ayers from the streets, but this doesn't happen. Lopez's story is given far more screentime than Ayers', and though it's not as compelling, it serves to deliver an important lesson in philanthropy: you cannot presume that the disadvantaged are the same as the unfortunates. The strength of this atypical message is never lost, though the flim does plenty to obscure it.
"The Soloist" may have been an Oscar contender, but was bumped to spring, and it's fairly obvious why. (It's also amusing that Jamie Foxx has a movie out at the same time Miley Cyrus does, but that's an article for another day.)
Robert Downey Jr. does a good job of being Robert Downey Jr., and while that's always entertaining, his portrayal of Steve Lopez is really nothing new. Jamie Foxx avoids overplaying schizophrenia, but the movie almost treats him like a supporting caracter, so the overall effect doesn't have much depth. Catherine Keener plays Lopez' stressed ex-wife, and while I really like Keener, I'm tired of seeing her typecast as a snarky feminista.
The film's treatment of social issues is equal parts piano and forte. In one scene, Lopez tells Ayers that he can't loiter in front of the L.A. Times building with his shopping cart of belongings. Lopez and Ayers are good friends at this point in the film, so Lopez telling Ayers to get lost is stone cold. The audience experiences guilt if they've ever looked down on a vagrant for being an eyesore. Shortly afterward, the police round up homeless on skid row, arresting vanfulls of innocents for illegal posession of shopping carts and milk crates. Individual arrests like this are real, but the scene happens more or less out of context, and is of questionable scale. As a statement against classism, the first scene would've stood alone without the ham-fisted addition of the second.
The details are equally perplexing. There are not one, but two urine jokes. There is a prick in khaki shorts overselling Christianity to an unreceptive, already-faithful Ayers. There is a firelit music montage, a scene following birdflight when Ayers gets a new cello, large rats in the streets where Ayers sleeps. These details don't add much to an already vivid portrayal of disorder, they only serve to shock or amuse you, and they're annoyingly peppered through the film.
Conversely, there are several details that add real artistry to the film. Overhead shots of cookie-cutter suburbs, ordered parking lots, and clover-leaf freeway interchanges highlight Los Angeles' unwelcome attitudes towards the chaos of homelessness and mental illness. Sound bleeds across scenes: soft music that lingers or voices that are so quiet that you wonder if they're on screen or in the row behind you. Graphics bridge decades too, as flashbacks to Ayers' life are neatly spliced with his modern interactions.
"The Soloist" offers plenty of food for thought, but doesn't offer you quite enough context to digest it. If the overstatements and unnecessary details were removed, the story and relationships would have more room to develop depth and subtlety. As is, this plays like an orchestra full of unobservant soloists. All of the necessary components for a provocative and sensitive story are there, and are completely destroyed by a lack of good blending and dynamics.
"The Soloist" is based off a true story. L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) has a chance meeting with a mentally ill street musician, Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx). Lopez discovers that Ayers is a dropout from the prestigious Julliard School of Music, and begins writing columns about Ayers' struggles. Lopez has a difficult time defining his relationship with Ayers, who doesn't want psychiatric care or a permanent residence.
It would've been easy to rewrite history, as movies are so fond of doing, in favor of a tidy story where Lopez rescues Ayers from the streets, but this doesn't happen. Lopez's story is given far more screentime than Ayers', and though it's not as compelling, it serves to deliver an important lesson in philanthropy: you cannot presume that the disadvantaged are the same as the unfortunates. The strength of this atypical message is never lost, though the flim does plenty to obscure it.
"The Soloist" may have been an Oscar contender, but was bumped to spring, and it's fairly obvious why. (It's also amusing that Jamie Foxx has a movie out at the same time Miley Cyrus does, but that's an article for another day.)
Robert Downey Jr. does a good job of being Robert Downey Jr., and while that's always entertaining, his portrayal of Steve Lopez is really nothing new. Jamie Foxx avoids overplaying schizophrenia, but the movie almost treats him like a supporting caracter, so the overall effect doesn't have much depth. Catherine Keener plays Lopez' stressed ex-wife, and while I really like Keener, I'm tired of seeing her typecast as a snarky feminista.
The film's treatment of social issues is equal parts piano and forte. In one scene, Lopez tells Ayers that he can't loiter in front of the L.A. Times building with his shopping cart of belongings. Lopez and Ayers are good friends at this point in the film, so Lopez telling Ayers to get lost is stone cold. The audience experiences guilt if they've ever looked down on a vagrant for being an eyesore. Shortly afterward, the police round up homeless on skid row, arresting vanfulls of innocents for illegal posession of shopping carts and milk crates. Individual arrests like this are real, but the scene happens more or less out of context, and is of questionable scale. As a statement against classism, the first scene would've stood alone without the ham-fisted addition of the second.
The details are equally perplexing. There are not one, but two urine jokes. There is a prick in khaki shorts overselling Christianity to an unreceptive, already-faithful Ayers. There is a firelit music montage, a scene following birdflight when Ayers gets a new cello, large rats in the streets where Ayers sleeps. These details don't add much to an already vivid portrayal of disorder, they only serve to shock or amuse you, and they're annoyingly peppered through the film.
Conversely, there are several details that add real artistry to the film. Overhead shots of cookie-cutter suburbs, ordered parking lots, and clover-leaf freeway interchanges highlight Los Angeles' unwelcome attitudes towards the chaos of homelessness and mental illness. Sound bleeds across scenes: soft music that lingers or voices that are so quiet that you wonder if they're on screen or in the row behind you. Graphics bridge decades too, as flashbacks to Ayers' life are neatly spliced with his modern interactions.
"The Soloist" offers plenty of food for thought, but doesn't offer you quite enough context to digest it. If the overstatements and unnecessary details were removed, the story and relationships would have more room to develop depth and subtlety. As is, this plays like an orchestra full of unobservant soloists. All of the necessary components for a provocative and sensitive story are there, and are completely destroyed by a lack of good blending and dynamics.
