Great Performances But Lacking Narrative Focus

Rating: 9/10 (16 October 2012)

Academy Award-nominated director Joe Wright teams with screenwriter Susannah Grant to tell the true-life story of Nathaniel Ayers, a former cello prodigy whose bouts with schizophrenia landed him on the streets after two years of schooling at Julliard in this movie entitled,The Soloist.It features Jamie Foxx,Robert Downey, Jr. and Catherine Keener. Foxx portrays Ayers, who is considered a cello prodigy, and Downey portrays Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist who discovers Ayers and writes about him in the newspaper.
Steve Lopez is a disenchanted journalist stuck in a dead-end job. His marriage to a fellow journalist having recently come to an end, Steve is wandering through Los Angeles' Skid Row when he notices a bedraggled figure playing a two-stringed violin. The figure in question is Ayers, a man whose promising career in music was cut short due to a debilitating bout with mental illness. The more Lopez learns about Ayers, the greater his respect grows for the troubled soul. Later, as Lopez embarks on a quixotic quest to help Ayers pull his life together and launch a career in music, he gradually comes to realize that it is not Ayers whose life is being transformed, but his own.
Though it features strong performances by its lead players, a lack of narrative focus prevents the movie from hitting its mark.In the hands of a director more suited to the material,it might have been a deeply moving experience as we know something important is being played out before us and it lacks power; and there are times when it hits home with force. It definitely has its moments but too heavy-handed and predictable.The subject matter is a little too easy to overdo for that, but it is pretty good, thanks to a pair of fine performances from Foxx and Downey.