Moving and intelligent

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 2009)

It's a shame that this movie has been given such a low-key release in both the USA and the UK because it is an intelligent and moving story that is beautifully directed and superbly acted. Direction comes from Britain's Joe Wright, who did such a fine job with "Atonement" (another film based on a book), and he uses some great aerial shots and allows time for the music to work its magic. The lead actors are Robert Downey Jr - who has had his own lifestyle problems - as "Los Angeles Times" columnist Steve Lopez and Jamie Foxx as Nathaniel Ayers, a musical prodigy, probably now schizophrenic, reduced to playing a two-string violin as a vagrant on the city's sidewalks.
In a sense, we've been here before, since music and mania make good cinema - think of mentally ill pianist David Helfgott in "Shine" or even Mozart in "Amadeus" - and Beethoven is a favoured classical composer for the movies (remember everything from "Soylent Green" to "Zardoz" and especially "A Clockwork Orange"). But this is a tale worth telling because it is based on a true story, offers a sensitive narration, and exposes an important social issue, namely the relationship between homelessness and mental illness. Also it avoids a neat, simplistic ending, instead inviting us to consider how we can befriend and support people rather than necessarily 'mend' them.