The Soloist (2009)

Directed by Joe Wright. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Jamie Foxx, Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Nelsan Ellis, Rachael Harris, Stephen Root, Justin Martin, Lorraine Toussaint. [PG-13]

L.A. Times journalist Steve Lopez (Downey) encounters a homeless schizophrenic with a talent for music named Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx). After learning that Ayers once attended Julliard but dropped out because of his mental illness, Lopez decides there’s a good story to tell here and becomes personally involved in the troubled man’s life. Foxx relies on showy affectations and motor-mouthed dexterity, but something’s missing underneath the paranoia and confusion; Downey falls back on his usual sardonic, smart aleck-y tricks while executing little more than a variation on his familiar type: a sharp but disillusioned cynic who finds his humanity along the way. The two of them do what they can with the cards they’re dealt, but their best efforts aren’t enough to redeem an unfocused and emotionally-remote narrative that’s hard to endure. Being based on a true story, the film avoids the pitfalls of manufactured uplifting sentiment, but director Wright demonstrates almost as little grasp on how to tackle the material as he did a few years later with his head-scratching sojourn into fantastical escapism, Pan. The film also fails to express Ayers’ passion for music in creative and/or moving ways that feel organic to the storytelling (one Beethoven-fueled sequence of “synesthesia” stands out without ever becoming, well, a standout). Keener is criminally underused as Lopez’s editor-slash-ex-wife. Written by Susannah Grant from Lopez’s book, “The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music.” Octavia Spencer and Jena Malone have minor roles.

42/100