| | | No One Changes Anything By Playing It Safe.
Academy Award nominee Robert Downey Jr. and Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx star in an extraordinary and inspiring true story of how a chance meeting can change a life. The Soloist tells the poignant and ultimately soaring tale of a Los Angeles newspaper reporter who discovers a brilliant and distracted street musician, with unsinkable passion, and the unique friendship and bond that transforms both their lives. The remarkable performances make for an unforgettable experience in what is hailed as "a courageous and uncompromising film"
"Downey gives a nervy, riveting performance..." Connie Ogle, Miami Herald
"A triumphant movie about failure." Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
Editor's Note
Director Joe Wright (ATONEMENT, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) brings the true story of an unlikely friendship to life in THE SOLOIST. An award-winning columnist with the Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) ultimately becomes an advocate for L.A.?s homeless population when he meets Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a talented musician who's been playing a two-stringed violin while living on the streets and battling mental illness. Struck by Ayers?s passion for music, Lopez begins to write a series of columns about his new acquaintance while attempting to get him off the streets and playing music again. Amidst numerous achievements and setbacks, Lopez and Ayers develop a friendship based on mutual respect despite their many differences, and Lopez rediscovers his humanity.While the focus of the film is the relationship that develops between the two men, the film also tackles the harsh realities of homelessness and the plight of the mentally ill. Lending authenticity to the story, a number of L.A.?s homeless population were cast as extras in the film. An additional subplot is the quandary that daily newspapers face as the world and the news increasingly go electronic, and popular news becomes more sensationalistic. Foxx is both heartbreaking and life-affirming as Ayers, whose undiagnosed schizophrenia drove him away from Juilliard as a young man, and whose fierce independence keeps him on the streets. Downey Jr. turns in a nuanced performance as Lopez, who finally realizes that while he may not be able to save Ayers, he can accept him as he is. Catherine Keener, Lisa Gay Hamilton, and Tom Hollander appear in supporting roles.
| Features | Audio Commentary: Director Joe Wright | | Audio: Dubbed French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 | | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 | | Deleted Scenes | | Featurettes: An Unlikely Friendship: Making The Soloist, Kindness, Courtesy and Respect: Mr. Ayers + Mr. Lopez, One Size Does Not Fit All: Addressing Homelessness in Los Angeles, & Beth's Story | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | The Soloist - DVD Review By: Chris Barsanti - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 7/24/2009 7:48 PM | |
Joe Wright's worlds-colliding drama The Soloist has so many strikes against it that it's hard to imagine coming out the other end feeling anything but relief that it was over. Think of it: a based-on-a-true-story about a cold-hearted journalist who meets a mentally disturbed homeless man who just happens to be a world-class musician. Together, the two strike up a unique friendship against the backdrop of Los Angeles's Dickensian skid row and imploding newspaper industry; a bright flower blooming from the crack in a downtown sidewalk. Also, one of the men happens to be black and the other white. On paper, the treacle-meter for The Soloist is nearly off the charts....read the full review |
| The Soloist - DVD Review By: Sherry Lipp - Blogcritics.org Reviews Published on: 10/27/2009 5:54 AM | | The Soloist, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx, is based on the true story of homeless schizophrenic musician Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx). This film centers on Ayers’ relationship with L.A. Times reporter Steve Lopez (Downey). Lopez, always in pursuit of a topic for his next column, one day comes across Ayers playing his violin in a city park. Intrigued, Lopez decides to make Ayers his next subject. What follows in the movie is the ups and down of their tumultuous relationship. Ayers must grapple with the balance, what turns out to be a very thin line, between helping Ayers and exploiting him....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Paramount Home Video |
| Release Date: 8/4/2009 |
| Running Time: 116 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2009 | | Catalog ID: 349444 | | UPC: 00097363494447 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Hollywood Reporter
"Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx are on fire in the lead roles: They're both charismatic as hell without sacrificing any of the emotional honesty necessary for you to believe that these movie stars are a scruffy reporter and mentally ill musician." 04/16/2009USA Today
3 stars out of 4 -- "The cello's evocative, often melancholy sound envelops THE SOLOIST, highlighting the poignant appeal of this heartfelt film." 04/24/2009 New York Times
"[I]ts commitment to the material feels honest, nowhere more so than in Mr. Downey's darkly shaded, nuanced performance, one that deepens this film with its insistence on the fundamental mysteries of human character." 04/24/2009 Wall Street Journal
"Mr. Wright and his colleagues have made a movie with a spaciousness of its own, a brave willingness to explore such mysteries of the mind and heart as the torture that madness can inflict, and the rapture that music can confer." 04/24/2009 Washington Post
"It's impossible not to be moved by THE SOLOIST, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx....The film is suffused with heartbreak and humanism, as it takes one man's grim story -- early promise, bright future, mental breakdown, despair -- and turns it into a spiritual meditation on friendship." 04/24/2009 ReelViews 7 of 10
One of the most difficult things for a filmmaker to accomplish is to craft a drama that provides emotional satisfaction without resorting to overt manipulation. Director Joe Wright has thus far achieved this twice, with a superlative adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and a version of Atonement. Perhaps Keira Knightley (who was in those movies but is not in this one) is his muse or maybe Wright's talents are not well suited for this adaptation of Steve Lopez's true-life book. Whatever the case, this motion picture strikes enough wrong notes to keep it out of the must-see category. It's not hard to understand why Paramount pulled The Soloist from its original pre-Oscar December 2008 slot for the less competitive purgatory of late April - quite simply, this is not Oscar caliber material...As one might expect from a "based on a true story" motion pictures, some of the facts have been altered to fit the needs of a screenplay. (For example, in real life, Steve Lopez is happily married, not divorced as he is in the movie.) The real Lopez has maintained, however, that corners were not cut in the representation of Nathaniel and the character in the film is an accurate mirror of his friend. As a book, Lopez's account of his relationship with Nathaniel is compelling; it is considerably less so in movie form. Much of the story's humanity comes from Lopez's writing, and that is lost in the screenplay (despite occasional voiceover excerpts). The Soloist is neither wrongheaded nor inept, but it is strangely inert. Of all the things I might have expected, leaving the theater largely unconcerned about either of the characters was not one of them, yet that is what happened. - James Berardinelli
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