Show The Soloist Jamie Foxx gives a bravura performance Chris Kaltenbach The Baltimore Sun The twin heroes of The Soloist have to stare down almost every evil modern modem society can throw at them mental illness urban decay hubris abuse of power narcissism even the declining fortunes of Americas America's newspapers And while they dont don't exactly emerge triumphant they win enough battles to give us all hope Robert Downey Jr is Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez and hes he's desperate for a story Out trolling one afternoon he hears violin music coming from the area surrounding a statue of Beethoven The source is a scraggly mumbling disconsolate- disconsolate looking home homeless ess man Ja Jamie nie Foxx with only two strings on his violin His name is Nathaniel Ayers Jr and hes he's a mess Hes He's also a potential story and a few conversations and phone calls later Lopez discovers just how good a story The Thea guy I g a musical enrolled at Juilliard who couldn't control his demons so he dropped out way out Lopez has his own problems to deal with including a failed marriage to his editor played by Catherine Keener and encroaching layoffs at the Times But try as he might Lopez cant can't get Ayers out of his head When a sympathetic reader has her antique cello delivered to Lopez's office the die is cast Whether he wants to toor toor toor or not Lopez is going to be helping his new friend get his life back And that's not going to be easy because to say Ayers has the odds stacked against him would trivialize the point Its It's not enough that hes he's homeless and suffering from a debilitating mental illness Hes He's living on the gritty streets of LA a place that the films film's production designer Sarah Greenwood makes look like a hell even Dante couldn't have envisioned a nightmarish World of despair and dissolution Working their way out of this wont won't be easy for either Lopez or Ayers Downey his hair cutway cut cut- way short and a few days' days stubble always on his chin never seems quite comfortable as Lopez for once his edginess seems forced Then again maybe that's the point Maybe Lopez doesn't feel comfortable as Lopez But Foxx is magnificent taking a role that could be exorbitantly showy actors playing the mentally disabled tend to forg forget t the word restraint and turning taming in a performance that's controlled and mesmerizing Based on a true story and Lopez's series of columns about Ayers this is not an sy tUm Many fan fans fang of ofF F Foxx and Downey eager to see their heroes in roles that can easily be embraced are going to be disappointed The movie asks a lot of its audience sometimes maybe too much To its credit no one here is easy to root for but the endless parade of weighty societal issues does become tiring after a while As with his last movie Atonement director Joe Wright shrinks from not nota a single challenge His characters are edgy flawed and seemingly more prone to mistakes than victories But they persevere and andin andin andin in that perseverance rests their and our triumph |