Director Joe Wright makes many attempts throughout The Soloist to get inside the mind of its central character, Nathaniel Ayers, a schizophrenic musical genius and former Juilliard student now living on the streets of Los Angeles. Pretty much all of them are unsuccessful — especially an extended psychedelic lightshow that’s meant to capture the essence of Beethoven’s Third Symphony but which looks more like the screensaver on my MacBook. On the other hand, the movie does a smashing job of getting inside the head of its other main character: Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times who meets Ayers, discovers his fascinating story, writes a series of columns about him, and soon becomes his reluctant caregiver. The film is narrated by Lopez, but in a nice touch, a lot of that narration is spoken as if it’s Lopez’ first draft — he rephrases sentences on the fly, and at one point takes out a crack about California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger not just because Arnie jokes are clichéd, but also (and here’s the kicker) because it’s too generic and therefore “lacking in context.”
Yes! That’s the kind of ruthless self-critique — hard on Schwarzenegger, harder on himself — that so few movies about newspapers capture. (State of Play, the other crusading-journalist drama currently in theatres, couldn’t be less interested in the craft of newspaper writing.) There’s a nice scene early in the film, where Lopez has just begun digging into Ayers’ past, and is told by a Juilliard records clerk that no one by Ayers’ name ever attended the school, to which Lopez, irked, replies, “But then I have no story!” Any reporter who’s ever had a promising idea for a story smash against the brick wall of facts will smile with recognition.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Lopez, and he’s perfectly cast here as an idealist who’s spent decades building up a tough outer layer of cynicism. Watching Robert Downey Jr. do anything onscreen is currently one of the greatest pleasures of going to the movies — the man radiates such intelligence, wit, and soul that it’s fascinating simply to watch Lopez sit outside a homeless community centre waiting for Ayers to show up, or sit at home late one night, listening to an old LP of Neil Diamond singing “Mr. Bojangles.”
The Soloist is being marketed as a tale of the indomitability of the human spirit, not unlike Susan Boyle — “Not only can ugly people sing, but schizophrenic street people can play musical instruments too!” But the movie, smartly, focuses instead on Lopez’ character — the real question at the heart of the film isn’t whether Ayers will be “cured” or if he’ll simply be able to pull himself together long enough to perform music in public — it’s whether Lopez will have the courage to accept responsibility for Ayers’ well-being and make him a real part of his life. It’s a question so many of us have to face at some point in our lives, whether it’s occasioned by a troubled friend or an aging parent, and most of us react with the same terror, the same desire to find some loophole that will allow us to run away, as Lopez.
The script is by Susannah Grant, one of my favourite mainstream screenwriters — her credits include Erin Brockovich, 28 Days, and In Her Shoes, movies which may look like middlebrow chick-flick star vehicles, but which are almost always smarter and more thoughtfully written than they appear. Jamie Foxx gives a sensitive, restrained performance as Ayers (or as restrained as you can be while wearing whiteface and a shiny Uncle Sam hat). And Catherine Keener is excellent in her few scenes as Lopez’ editor and ex-wife. Why hasn’t someone paired her up with Downey Jr. before this? There’s a scene where she gets drunk and almost casually tears Lopez to shreds with just a few well-chosen words. What other actress could square off against Downey Jr. as ferociously as Keener? She’s a masochistic reporter’s dream girl.
0 Yorumlar