The Soloist may be a tad too realistic for comfort. It tells the true story of Los Angelos Times reporter Steve Lopez, played by Robert Downey Jr., and his unconventional friendship with a homeless street musician named Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, played by Jamie Foxx.
Story goes, Steve Lopez, caught in a mid-life funk and following a bike accident that left his face scarred was out wandering around the LA times building when he heard the sound of a violin. Searching out the sound he found a homeless man playing a violin with only two strings underneath a statue of Beethoven. The man is hard to have a conversation with, as he talks toward the wind in hurried sentences. Still after gleaning that this man had once attended Julliard, Lopez decides that this just might be a story.
It could have ended there, but a grandmother with arthritis sends Lopez a cello and tells him to give it to Ayers. So Lopez does so, but he won’t simply give it to Ayers. He looks up a homeless shelter and tells Ayers that they are going to hold it for him, and if he wants to use it he has to go play it there. Lopez doesn’t know why, but Ayers doesn’t want to go anywhere near this place (called LAMP in the movie). And so Lopez, and we vicariously through him, are soon introduced to a very ugly world, the several streets in Los Angelos that we all drive by and never actually see. Where all of the failures and decay of human society coalesce and hang around each other like such festering rot, growing like a cancer in the heart of the city. It is a humbling experience to witness such a place for the first time. I lived near Los Angelos for most of my life and never knew it existed. It is embarrassing that we as a society allow such places to exist. Director Joe Wright structures this movie around this place as if it is the third main character in the movie. And how he does this, combined with Robert Downey Jr.’s eerily unromantic performance, is what makes a story that would ordinarily be uplifting in other hands, uneven and only mildly enjoyable. Director Joe Wright isn’t sugarcoating homelessness or mental illness. Like Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man” Nathaniel Ayers is not ever going to get better. And Steve Lopez understandably doesn’t want complete responsibility over an unstable homeless man, no matter how talented. He’s no hero and this movie contains no miracles.
The only thing that could have made this a great movie was great choice in music. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. I’m no huge connoisseur in classical music, but I know a heck of a lot more than most people, and the only song I recognized was Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. That also happened to be the best song in the bunch. The rest of the pieces sound very much like ordinary classical music where the theme goes in circles and never gets anywhere. I know there are better songs out there. They could have at least played some Mozart. I also will say this; classical music does not go well with concrete. It doesn’t particularly work when a cello plays and we are treated to a view of a massive parking lot. I believe the point of Ayers playing was to get away from the city. It doesn’t work to actually show the ugliness that is LA when he’s playing his music.
Of course, whether this movie is enjoyable or not doesn’t deter its inherent nobility. This is one of those movies that you should like strictly on principle. It’s about growing up and taking responsibility. Which is all very good, but not usually what people are looking for when they go and see a movie.
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