|
|
 |
|
Soloist, The
/ DVD-Video
|
|
|
Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic) / Production Year: 2009 / Region 1
|
 |
|
Available on other Media:
|
|
• Blu-ray:
Soloist, The
|
Purchase for
$31.99
|
|
|
|
|
Overall Rating:  4.5 out of 5, including 1 review
Be the first customer to comment on this Title. |
It would be hard to imagine this movie with anyone else in the two starring roles. Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. are perfectly cast in this film about a fallen musical prodigy and the prodigious LA Times columnist who attempts to restore him to the glory of his potential. Downey Jr. hits all the subtle notes of a man who sees past his personal interests (in this case, generating copy for a weekly column) and into the humanity of the kind of human he normally avoids. Foxx delivers a powerful performance on the level of his work in Ray. The real life musician he plays this time around requires none of the domineering, charismatic or egotistic characteristics of Ray Charles, but puts Foxx in a position to express the genius of the schizophrenic Nathaniel Anthony Ayers through timidity and grace.
The film does not beat one over the head with its message, but rather builds to it slowly and sensibly. Steve Lopez (Downey Jr.) discovers Ayers luring a mesmerizing tune from a beat-up two-stringed violin next to a statue of Beethoven in downtown LA. His curiosity gets the better of him and he starts to probe the disheveled musician for a potential hook to his story. Ayers, in his typical rapid-fire mumbling manner, casts the word Juilliard into the air and Lopez is hooked. Forget the subplots - the raccoons, the "save me save me I'm drowning" overtone in the newsroom, or the crumbled relationship with Catherine Keener's character - this is where the movie begins.
From there it waltzes back and forth between the homeless community center where Ayers is allowed to play the cello that one of Lopez's readers has donated, the newsroom where Lopez spins Ayers's life story into newsprint, the alleys and streets where Ayers beds down each night, and twice to the home of the Philharmonic. Breaking up the present-day narrative, a handful of well-placed and enlightening flashbacks show the story that is etched into Foxx's face. They detail his childhood in Cleveland, the troubled semesters at Juilliard, the desertion of his anticipated high-society future. The film succeeds in showing the complete character of its principle subject.
Elsewhere director Joe Wright strives to find a visual metaphor for the way music exists in Ayers's head. He falls flat when his camera tracks soaring pigeons to the strains of Ayers playing cello in an underpass. The scene is painfully trite. He comes closer to the mark when Ayers is made a guest of the LA Philharmonic. Explosions of color swirl and tumble and melt into a fantasia of delightful choreography as the classical music fills Nathaniel's head. But music is just music. It does not strive to be color. Nor does color strive to be music. This is why the best correlation Wright finds to visually describe music comes through a design that also delves deepest into the mental state of Foxx's character. In the organic way that The Triplets of Belleville pulled vintage jazz from commonplace activities or Steve Reich's "City Life" used the sounds of city streets (news vendors, car horns, doors slamming) to provide rhythm and texture, so too does The Soloist synthesize the ambience of the world around Ayers into his music. Footsteps tap a beat in his head, clapping becomes symphonic percussion, passing cars become his musical notation. Wright amplifies these sounds in the same way he amplifies the voices and delusions that comprise Ayers's schizophrenia. The point being, they are linked indelibly into the core of who the man is. Give credit to the director and actors for fleshing out this bond. It is what makes the story so captivating and so tragic.
Real life resists the happy ending of traditional narrative. And so the unstable Nathaniel strikes out at the forces that would confine him. He cannot be made to dress up and perform his music for others. He needs to be free to create the music he hears as he hears it. Lopez gets too far into Ayers's world and is forced back to a safer distance. All the while the viewer is pulled in.
Features:
An Unlikely Friendship... is a 20 min. documentary about the film. It introduces the real-life Mr. Ayers and Mr. Lopez. There is also revealing and interesting footage about Jamie Foxx's cello playing.
Kindness, Courage, Loyalty...is a 5 min. expose on the relationship between Mr. Ayers and Mr. Lopez.
Homelessness...is a 10 min. doc which further explores the plight of downtown LA's homeless population.
Beth's Story...is a short animated story that details how a person can easily become homeless.
Deleted Scenes...are boring.
- DVD Empire
by Stephen Pusateri |
|
| |
