CinePhillyist Reviews... The Soloist

Let's just get one thing out of the way before launching into the proper review: I am in love with Robert Downey, Jr. Not since seeing Michael J. Fox whip through time in that DeLorean have I been so smitten with an actor. I typically don't get into the whole swooning over celebrities thing, but I can't help myself with this one. My love is unavoidable, uncontrollable, and unrelenting. Okay, I feel better now having disclosed that. On with the review.

Having read the moving but not too lofty book The Soloist by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the film adaptation. As we all know, movie adaptations can be a success or an unmitigated disaster. Luckily for The Soloist, it was in good hands with the screenwriter of Erin Brockovich adapting and the director of Atonement at the helm. They did the book justice. This tale of the messy, trying relationship between a newspaper columnist and a homeless, schizophrenic musician could easily have slipped over into becoming a corny, feel-good pile of slop. But it's not. It is a real look at the interpersonal dynamics of the two men.

At first, Jamie Foxx's character, Nathaniel Ayers, Jr., is simply another story to Robert Downey, Jr.'s character, newspaperman Steve Lopez. But over the course of the film, as Lopez gets more deeply involved with Ayers, the mentally ill man becomes more than just an intriguing topic for a column. Lopez tries to be an angel to Ayers. (An angel with his halo askew, I might add.) But, after frustrations, setbacks, and questioning his own actions, Lopez realizes that he doesn't have to be a savior to this man, he just has to be present in his life.

The movie falls short of being preachy, but it is full of heavy-handed clichés that thud the viewer over the head like a blow from a two-by-four. (Gee, a newspaper man wearing a fedora. How terribly original.) But what was excellent about the film was that it didn't shy away from the scarier parts of Ayers's mental illness, especially when we see him lash out against the people closest to him. We know that even though he shows remorse, very little hope for recovery exists. There is no miraculous redemptive resolution by which the story line is tied up in a pretty package and presented in typical Hollywood fashion. Instead, it's an honest and compelling look at some troubling subject matter. And for that reason, it is a worthwhile and thought-provoking film worthy of your time.

Image via About.com.