Director: Joe Wright
Following his Academy Award nominated period piece, “Atonement”, director Joe Wright points his camera at the homeless men and women living on the forgotten streets of Los Angeles.
“The Soloist”, starring two of the finest actors in Hollywood today, had just about everything going for it to be a prestigious award picture. It was originally slated to be released during last year’s award season, but it was then pulled at the last minute for an early 2009 release. This was a justifiable move. Rather than explaining why, all I must do is describe a scene in which CGI pigeons soar above the city with the accompaniment of a cello solo. This isn’t oscar bait, it’s a parody of oscar bait – a self-important picture that, for all of it’s technical and artistic merit, never finds it’s heart.
The film is based on a real-life columnist from the LA Times, Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), who befriended a homeless street musician in Los Angeles. He is Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a terribly paranoid and fearful man who once attended the Juilliard school of music. Lopez, who had been searching for material, used Nathaniel as the subject of a successful series of articles – articles which not only painted an uplifting story of a man given an opportunity to escape the streets, but an article that drew attention to the vast homeless population of Los Angeles.
To the film’s credit, it casts real homeless men and women for scenes in the Los Angeles Men’s Project, or LAMP, a social services agency. However, although we’re told to sympathize with these individuals, they are simply used as background. They are left faceless outcasts, their figures used condescendingly to illustrate horror. The movie tries to tell us to take care of our fellow man, but all it succeeds in saying is “for your consideration”.
Foxx is especially good, and what’s interesting about his performance is that he never tries to uncover some sort of great truth within Nathaniel. He’s kept at an arm’s length from us throughout the entirety of the picture, and he’s so convincing, in fact, that it’s easy to differentiate actor from part regardless of Foxx’s top billing and mainstream credibility. Downey Jr. is also good, however his Steve Lopez is wrought a bit dull. The only thing we get to know about him is that he has problems with raccoons and his ex-wife, played by the criminally under-utilized Catherine Keener.
Joe Wright, although proven to be a man of enormous talents, was perhaps not right for this project. He’s not shy to flaunt his skill, as in the aforementioned pigeon scene and another one that involves Nathaniel’s colorful visualization of classical music. Such flourishes rarely come off as anything but pretentious, however, and by the end of the film such an obviously uplifting tale really fails to make you feel anything at all.
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