Music to My Ears (even if it is on only two strings)

The Soloist (2009) 9/10

My first thought when looking at previews for this movie was “oh great, another inspirational story about a genius who has a hard life and has to overcome the obstacles to make it in the world.” UGH, another “August Rush”, another “Finding Forrester.”

Yes, I admit it, I was very skeptical. Not to mention it had Robert Downey Jr. in it, most of whose movies I do not really care for, with the exceptions of “Sherlock Holmes”, “Kiss, Kiss Bang, Bang”, “Charlie Bartlett”, and “A Scanner Darkly.” That being said, I had heard good things about it and I wanted to see what it was all about, so I popped this bad boy in.

it started off with all the telltale signs of a inspirational/hard time story, the big cheese reporter who has it all—although he clearly isn't happy, and it is obvious. The man underneath the pigeon poop ridden statue of Ludwig Van Beethoven playing the most beautiful music you have ever heard on a violin

with only two strings that should have been recycled long ago. Even the struggle for Downey Jr.'s character to get past Nathaniel Ayers' (Jamie Foxx) apparent mental illness and make a connection has been played out over and over.

Right at the moment where I was beginning to think that my fears were founded and proved right, the movie took a turn that definitely surprised me. The dialogue between Ayers and Lopez (Downey Jr.) was not cliché, nor did it seem contrived. Their conversations were genuine and real, and they had a connection going from the first words, and yet nothing that made sense was said at all.

As the movie went on I was further pleased by how well Joe Wright (director: “Hannah”, “Atonement”, “Pride and Prejudice”) was able to capture these characters and make what I thought to be an inspirational, cheesy film, into something that really made you think and made you feel sadness, happiness, and frustration all at the same time. At the end of the film I realized that this was not necessarily a happy film at all. This man was not just a man who was down on his luck and was living in the streets. This man was seriously ill and he was not someone that could just be fixed or could be given a handout or anything like that. In fact throughout the movie, it is made perfectly clear that he actually did not want most help that is offered to him. In the end the narrator (Downey Jr.) states that he is not sure if anything that he has done has made any difference in Ayers' life, and that all he could do was be a friend and show up and hope that it helped.

The performances of Downey Jr. and Foxx in this movie were fantastic, and really shined. They took these characters and made them organic and made them easy to identify with, and in the end you felt like you went through the journey with them, and felt all the same emotions that they did.

In short this movie did exactly what I like movies to do—surprise me. This movie completely did a 180 on what I expected and I loved every second of it.