The Solist

I was really looking forward to The Soloist. I was expecting a real dynamic match-up between Robert Downey Jr. and Jaime Foxx. However, I regret to say, I was kind of disappointed. Instead of two of our greatest actors facing off, we had Jaime Foxx doing monologues with his inner demons, and Robert Downing Jr. as the detached observer.

There are other things that bothered me with this movie. I thought that the flashback sequences added very little to the film. The director should have taken the advice of the social worker in the film when he said, “It doesn’t matter what his diagnosis is, the best thing he’s got going for him is a friend.” To me, that is the fault of the film. Too much time was spent trying to explain how Nathaniel winded up on the street. Instead, the focus should have been on the relationship between Nathaniel and the newspaper columnist Steve Lopez. What I wanted to know was why Mr. Lopez so taken with Nathaniel? Why was he driven and compelled to keep interfering in his life? And how has this relationship impacted his life and how he interacts with other people?

I also felt that the director made a wrong turn in another area. The director tried to visualize sound. When Nathaniel goes to a concert rehearsal, we watch his face as he listens and is overcome with rapture. But, instead of allowing us to linger on the emotions in his face, we are treated to a light show, where various colored blobs and shapes, mimic the sounds of the orchestra. What a mistake. One of the most powerful cinematic memories I have is from the movie The Elephant Man. When John Merrick goes to the theatre for the first time, you can see all his emotions by watching his eyes. You didn’t need to see the play. You knew it was beautiful because you could see it on his face. I wish that the director Joe Wright would have trusted his actors a little more and allowed us to watch their faces. I remember one previous Robert Downey Jr. film where the director had a really long shot on the actor, just looking at himself in the mirror. I was mesmerized.

Without going on and nit picking the film to bits, let me just stop and say that this film didn’t work for me. I never bought into the relationship between the two men, it lacked an emotional connection, and at one point I just wanted to yell and say, “Leave the man alone! He was happy under his bridge!” The only scene that really worked for me was when Mr. Lopez was describing the charge he got out of watching Nathaniel’s face at the concert. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed that pleasure.

I’m not saying that this is a bad film, it is better than most. I was just very disappointed. The uneven tone of the film, and for me, the emotional disconnect, did not meet with my expectations. I was really hoping for more.

Rating: Rent It Two great actors in an uneven film