In a concrete jungle like L.A., Angelenos have an excuse for not stopping to smell the roses – there are none. L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is guilty-as-charged, cruising through life on a squeaky bicycle, concerned only with deadlines and tweaking his diction, until life gets in the way. By life, I mean the asphalt road that gets in the way of his face. An eye swollen shut, Lopez’s ears are wide open, enough to hear the lovely melodies played by Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a homeless schizophrenic who’ll tell you that he has bigger problems – like a violin with only two strings. Ayers doesn’t shake Lopez’s hand. Perhaps he knows he’s being used for a story. “The beginning of a beautiful friendship,” this is not. The beginning of a wonderful film, this is.
From this tenuous start, we traverse the usual ups and downs – Lopez learns that friendship is more important than a scoop; he ignorantly tries to cure Ayers’ illness; various flashbacks show us how Ayers’ obsession with music drowned out everything else in his head, until the voices showed up. But The Soloist is far from derivative. At times more experimental art house than spring Oscar bait (just look at the box-office tallies), Director Joe Wright (Atonement) fills his film with visionary passages displaying not only the music in Ayers’ head—and what stunning music it is—but the music found in our everyday lives, were we to listen: the rhythm of a chugging printing press; the tapping of hands on a shopping cart; the choreography of birds flying over midday traffic. Yearning for typical melodramatic plot trappings, some might cry foul. Finally realizing just how much of life has passed us by without our knowledge, others might flat-out cry. For this film is not just for Ayers – it’s for the 90,000 homeless Angelenos a closing title card tells us exist. The Lamp Community that looks more like a warzone than a respite for the unfortunate many without a place to lay their heads. A large second-act chunk is devoted to seemingly unscripted, vérité conversations Lopez has with Lamp residents. For a moment, you forget this is a film, immersed in the stories told by people yearning to be heard; the faces on the other side of our rolled-up car windows. Most of us, myself included, had no idea Lamp Community even existed. This film was made for us. Now we have no excuse.
Never floundering in melodrama, The Soloist relies on virtuoso lead performances to convey the plight of two people who can’t realize they need each other. It took Poitier and Tony Curtis two hours to finally clasp hands. It takes Lopez and Ayers about the same. Equal parts buddy film, road trip, and character piece, the film is a journey behind the glitz and glamour we all naively believe to be L.A. Lopez’s ex-wife and editor Mary (Catherine Keener) is perhaps the only character attuned to the city’s true heartbeat. She’s also the most burdened by her non-involvement. Roses are impossible to smell from behind plate glass.
Craig Berkey’s sound design is magnificent, with its motif of quiet dialogue deliveries and naturalistic, indigenous sound. He demands the audience’s full attention to what is being said. The Lamp Community demands the same. Fresh off Atonement, and its melodic typewriter keys, Wright and composer Dario Marianelli create their L.A. sonata, a finger-pointing opus aimed at apathetic moviegoers. Some might leave the theater angry, not with the filmmakers, but themselves. It takes Lopez 100 minutes to realize that Ayers doesn’t need a doctor or a pill, but a friend. Someone who’ll give him those two extra violin strings. How long has it taken us to sniff out this fact of life? So the next time someone extends their hand, shake it. You might realize that spare change isn’t what they’re asking for. After all, friends can be found in the unlikeliest of places. Even a rose can grow from concrete.
Clarence Hammond
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009