| Overall Grade: |
A- |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
A+ |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
B+ |
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Jamie Foxx has done it again!
by chuck (movies profile)
Apr 24, 2009
11
of
12 people found this review helpful
As roger Ebert said "The Soloist" has all the elements of an uplifting drama, except for the uplift."
Jamie Foxx's gives a powerful performance creating a man who is tense, fearful, paranoid and probably schizophrenic, Nathanial Ayers Jr.. He might reasonably sense another Academy Award for this dynamic performance.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, looking for a subject for his column. He encounters Ayers almost outside the Times building, attracted by the beautiful sounds he's making on a violin with only two strings. The man can play.
Lopez tries to get to know him, writes a first column about him, and in researching, learns that Ayers once studied cello at Juilliard. A reader sends Lopez a cello for him (this actually happened -but it was not an elderly widow), and the columnist becomes his brother's keeper.
"The Soloist" does a very effective job of showing us a rehab center on Skid Row, and the reason so many homeless avoid such shelters. It's not what happens inside, but the dozens of people outside, showing the worst of LA's skid row.
As a newspaper columnist, Downey is plausible as his overworked, disillusioned character, finding salvation through this story. And Catherine Keener, like Helen Mirren in "State of Play," convinces me she might really be an editor. Beethoven of course is always uplifting, but the movie doesn't employ him as an emotional showstopper.
There are no clear answers: Can Ayers be salvaged? Does he want to be? Or will be always be a soloist, playing to his demons in the darkness under a bridge? This could have been the best film I have viewed this year, but the ending was far too real - as Ebert said no uplift at the end! |
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