I finally finished “The Soloist” with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. I started to watch this movie while on a business trip. The Airbus had a video server and individual players in each head rest. I saw this film and thought it would be the typical Hollywood pap. About 40 minutes out of Seattle, I finally started watching the movie and it blew me away.
The story is about Nathaniel Ayers, an African-American man living in Los Angeles and Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times writer. Ayers was a student at Julliard in New York City and, because of mental illness, ends up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.
Lopez, played by Downey, happens upon Ayers, played by Foxx, while Ayers is playing Stevie Wonder on a violin with two strings. Lopez researches Ayers story and starts writing about him. The story of these two men develops and Lopez learns something about homeless people and about grace. Ayers learns something about coming back. The movie doesn’t wrap up the story as it is still going on.
The movie had several sequences of great shot selection accompanied by a great score. There were so many scenes where the direction really nailed the shot selection. The director does two things: actor direction and camera direction. I don’t know how much actor direction was at work here as Downey and Foxx were both great. Camera direction was also outstanding.
This is one of my favorite movies from the last year.