The Hawkeye

Issue date: 4/27/09 Section: Freestyle

Media Credit: mctcampus Newspaper columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr., left) discovers former musical prodigy turned homeless man Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) on the streets of downtown Los Angeles in the DreamWorks Pictures and Universal Pictures' drama "The Soloist."

To be honest, after seeing the film's trailer combined with my last experience in Joe Wright's deluge of sentimentalism that is Atonement, I had little desire to see The Soloist, featuring Robert Downey Jr. as LA Times journalist Steve Lopez and Jamie Foxx as musician Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr.

With phrases like "Will I ever be good again?" and "I'm his friend," the trailer made me dread the discarded Oscar fodder that the film purported to be (these phrases are either not in the film or lack the emphasis given in the trailer).

It seemed to be just another Hollywood manipulation of the story of someone mentally challenged that translates into cha-ching dollar signs for Hollywood a la Radio.

I'm writing this review to ensure you do not dismiss this film for any similar reasons. Many mainstream films insert characters with disabilities into their stories because it automatically forces the audience to care for them without establishing a complex character like cooking Macaroni and Cheese instead of putting labor into the making of pasta.

While The Soloist rests easily in the mainstream catalogue of films, it's not throwaway rubbish though some particularly schmaltzy scenes like the last scene between Nathaniel and his sister, Jennifer (Lisa Gay Hamilton) certainly parade their sentimentalism.

I like to blame this maudlin tendency on screenwriter Susannah Grant whose previous screenplays range from bathetic to mawkish: Ever After, 28 Days, Erin Brockovich, In Her Shoes, Catch and Release and Charlotte's Web. We have a hard-hitting realist here.

Given the difference in tone and focus, it's easy to assign Wright, the editors, the director of photography, and nearly anyone who isn't Grant the credit for making this film.

All the same, the film concerns itself with the variety of relationships we have with others and our commitment and fears towards them. Wright's films, from Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, and now The Soloist, zip through their visually remarkable stories, but concentrate on the perceptions we have of other people, which is always wrong in some way or another.

The film takes a look at how it's easier to dismiss people, reduce them to a single perception than to engage them in any sort of relationship. "Leave it for someone else to do" is Steve's method of operation as he gives excuses to his ex-wife, now editor played by Catherine Keener, for not calling their son.

After writing a series of articles about Nathaniel, his extraordinary musical talent, his love of Beethoven, his past at Juliard, his homelessness and mental instability, Steve begins to avoid any sort of committed friendship to Nathaniel.

He tries to enlist the help of psychiatry and medicine to cure Nathaniel, or convinces the mayor to help by starting a cleanup of the community where Nathaniel sleeps. However, these representatives of science and government respectively fail to "cure" or help Nathaniel in any remote way.

In fact, both endeavors result in two intense scenes of violence that cannot compare to the "grace," as Keener's character calls it, in committing yourself to someone, especially in friendship.

Nathaniel's character, wonderfully portrayed by Foxx, becomes someone more than just another character-with-a-disability performances. The flashback scenes are somewhat unnecessary as flashbacks usually are, but here they add to the musical atmosphere of the film.

The film works on many different levels, from political to relational, but it also works on a sociological level where Nathaniel represents the minority groups who we refuse to accept unless they adapt to the traditional American way.

In one scene, Nathaniel wears an Uncle Sam top hat with white powder on his face, symbolizing his subconscious effort as a black man, as a person with a disability,
as an artist, as a homeless man (and more) to be incorporated into "whiteness"
and all the rest that we subconsciously associate with "normal" American society.

By focusing on the relationship between these two men, the film is able to speak about much more than Steve's simple relational issues. However, the film does spend too much time on Steve's personal flaws, where Keener's character becomes only the necessary mentor archetype and a convenient outlet for demonstrating
the changes of Steve's character and his avoidance of intimacy.

At the same time, Wright integrates more into the film by showing the unknown
faces on the streets of Los Angeles, suggesting that Steve's problems are ones shared by all of us as we pass others one the street without care.

There's a doubly-shown neon sign, "The Wages of Sin are Death; the Gift of God is Eternal Life" that may take on too much meaning, but there's graffiti line written several times over and over below it: "I like myself. I like myself. I like myself." The juxtaposition of religion and insecure self-esteem gives way to more in-depth discussion in context of the story's multi-layered plot.

The film's narrative works well despite sections of dialogue that floats like pretentious sentimentalism when it could have benefited from an even more atmospheric approach to its city and characters, one that was willing to watch and dwell instead of moving from laughably silly pigeons to schmaltzy lines while lingering on close-ups.

The camera lingers on Robert Downey Jr., who recently portrayed journalist and contentedly cynical Paul Avery in David Fincher's Zodiac, but here Downey Jr. plays a journalist who looks for different, interesting stories from Nathaniel to the Union of Atheists and begins to question his own cynicism. Downey Jr. is a joy to watch and he fits the character perfectly.

Wright's The Soloist is absolutely worth watching even if it is not one to be treasured for years to come. See it not only for the two exceptional performances from its lead actors, but because it plays out as something much more than the average mainstream Hollywood flick.