The Soloist
stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie
Foxx in a powerful movie about an
unlikely friendship and how
friendship can affect people and
change lives. It also highlights
some huge problems with homelessness
in the LA area and some huge
problems with the mentally ill and
challenged and what those people
face. A movie based on a true story
usually has some pretty powerful
moments and The Soloist definitely
is full of those.
Steve Lopez
(Downey Jr.) is a columnist for the
LA Times. He’s a little wrapped up
in his job and he’s pretty proud of
what he does. He doesn’t see himself
as a great writer but you can tell
in the movie that his passion is
still his job and he prides himself
on doing a good job. After writing
an article on crashing on his
bicycle, Lopez needs another column.
He searches for ideas until he meets
a man in the park playing a violin
with only two strings. The man’s
name is Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx) and
it turns out he went to Julliard,
was gifted there but dropped out
after two years. His reasoning for
dropping out; his mental health.
Ayers is a
little off. He faces some big
challenges with
schizophrenia and
problems caused by that
schizophrenia. This
caused him to fall off the course at
Julliard, it’s caused him to be
afraid to live with his family and
his sister, it’s caused him to sleep
in the street. In his life Nathaniel
is homeless and alone with no
company but the other
down-and-trodden who can be less
than civil. Simply put Ayers lives
in a scary place and his love of
music has kept him alive while being
homeless and it’s kept him alive
through everything that’s gone on in
his life.
Downey Jr. and
Foxx both did excellent jobs in this
movie. Like a lot of movies he’s
been making lately Downey Jr.
chooses movies that reflect how much
he can do. That goes from being
funny and quirky to being crazy and
pissed. He’s good in this movie and
a little better than Foxx, who was
also outstanding. I’m not going to
lie and say they always worked on
stage together because there were a
couple of moments where one was
better than the other, but for the
most part they were pretty good.
The Soloist
highlights several problems but ends
on a bit of a sour note. A big point
of this movie is that you can’t fix
everything. It’s funny, it’s sad,
it’s scary, and most of all it’s a
dramatic. The Soloist isn’t a
defining movie from either of its
two main stars but it’s definitely a
good movie with a lot of emotion.
Definitely something that’s worth
your time.
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