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Last Updated: Jun 9th, 2009 - 12:52:45 |
The alter existence of 90,000 homeless people living on the streets of Los Angeles is the character with no name in “The Soloist,” which tells the true story of one homeless man, Nathaniel Ayers, a talented but mentally disturbed musician who is discovered by a newspaper journalist.
The funky and treacherous atmosphere of L.A.’s skid row, with its drug addicts, mental patients and assorted criminals (also brought to the screen two years ago in the documentary “Skid Row” featuring Pras) gives this film a context and gravitas that is both relevant to the state of the U.S economy and effective in helping to raising Ayers’s story above another Hollywood tale of Black woe.
The other factor that raises the level of the movie is the fine acting performances of both Jamie Foxx, who plays Ayers, and Robert Downey Jr., who plays the part of Steve Lopez, the Los Angeles Times writer who happened upon Ayers in downtown Los Angeles. Foxx proves that he cannot be typecast in any particular role and fully conveys the words, actions and even the distracted stare of a man who is living a whole other life inside his head. Downey is believable as a journalist who is fighting hard to hold onto meaning in his work, his profession and life. His imperfection is important in minimizing any sense of odious magnanimity in their relationship, as this man, who is certainly a White man on the screen at least, must come to the rescue of another down-and-out, dispossessed Black man.
The script by Sussanah Grant, based on the book by Lopez, also must be given its props for making both men fully drawn human beings. Though Ayers is mentally ill and he cannot tell us much about himself—except that he once attended the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City—he is revealed to us in a series of flashbacks into his childhood. We don’t know why his mind made a U-turn but we do get a sense that there can be a fine line between genius and insanity. Similarly, Lopez’s home life, in disarray after a divorce, reveals his struggle for balance and some sense of order. In other words, his phone ain't always on the hook either.
All in all, “The Soloist” is a work that is a poignant sign of the times. It manages to be relevant without being preachy, poignant without being melodramatic and often funny, without minimizing its characters or it many messages.
You can order Esther Iverem's critically praised We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007)at Amazon.com or purchase at your favorite bookstore. It makes a wonderful gift! Thanks!
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