The Music Man

Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) is quite quickly becoming one of my favorite young directors.

His is such an unobtrusive, clean, beautiful style that his movies just beg to be watched.

His latest, The Soloist, may not have the Victorian whim of his retelling of Jane Austen’s love story that became his calling card, or the serene beauty that gives way to tragedy during the opening phases of WW II found in his adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel, but it remains engrossing throughout because of the dignity he affords the characters that inhabit it.

The Soloist, which was pushed back to today from an awards-bait-y schedule last fall, tells the true story of Nathaniel Ayers Jr. (Jamie Foxx), a musical prodigy who developed schizophrenia in his second year at Juilliard, and ended living homeless on the most un-Hollywood streets of L.A., where he performed a two-string violin and caught the attention of L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.).

The movie was written by Erin Brockovich screenwriter Susannah Grant, based on a series of columns written by Lopez, as well as a book he authored.

Wright took a social-realist approach to the movie, and populated his wonderful cast with actual homeless and mentally ill people, who, he says, provided a reality check for the stars.

As a result, it is easy to buy Foxx as man down on his luck. He portrays Nathaniel Ayers with a strength a lesser actor couldn’t or wouldn’t have mustered. And Downey delivers a most realized, true-to-life, nerve-hitting depiction of a man trying to do the right thing, and squirming when faced with the prospect of taking responsibility for his actions.

That is, after all, how we all tend to feel when we see a homeless person on the street.

This movie, with all its feel-goodness, is an all-too-real confrontation and a wakeup call for all to take a moment to listen to the sounds of life, but also to consider our fortunes and pay them forward.

Yes, it’s a little unfocused at times – we get it…the newspapers industry is dying. Now go back to the unlikely friendship between the street musician and the jaded journalist. But when Wright zeros in on the compelling human drama, The Soloist rocks.

My Rating ***

Photo: DreamWorks Pictures.