Solid Performances, But the Rest . . .


In my book, “The Soloist� is an undisciplined, long, maudlin and highly irritating film about LA Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), who befriends and exploits a homeless schizophrenic cellist named Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx).

Lopez, in search of material for his column, discovers Ayers attended Juilliard at some point. He writes his tear-jerker piece and is ready to move along to the next topic when an elderly, retired and arthritic cellist sends him her instrument to pass on to Ayers, who is using a violin with only two strings.

So Lopez gets further involved in trying to help Ayers: arranging for him to practice at a service agency called The Lamp; making contacts at the symphony; arranging an apartment.

It backfires, to a certain extent, as the paranoid Ayers lashes out. 

And why shouldn’t he? What’s Lopez’s motive, anyway? The film makes it clear the newspaper business is dying. Is it a book deal he’s after? 

Now that line of inquiry might have made an interesting picture. But not here, where everything’s more or less hunky-dory at the end.

Susannah Grant’s screenplay (based on — yes! The book by Lopez!) leaps about from flashback to present and Joe Wright’s direction is of the kitchen sink variety, a muddled melange of styles that leaves the viewer confused.

If not bemused.

During a sequence when Ayers first plays his new cello for Lopez, we see two birds flying out of the concrete jungle. We see a lot of these two birds. They symbolize Freedom. Or Art. Or Something Important.

The director thinks America is to blame for homelessness and conveys this idea in ham-handed fashion — Jamie Foxx’s Ayers is decked out in an Uncle Sam top hat, uses Stars and Stripes bunting as a territorial mark and has Old Glory flying from his shopping cart. Other homeless characters have various articles of flag clothing too. 

And in a typically vague way, Wright injects two TV screen shots into the film: one of George W. Bush and one of a news report of Hurricane Katrina.

Why?

Is homelessness Bush’s fault? The question is never brought up.

The dumbest moment in the film comes during a scene where Ayers and Lopez are listening to the Los Angeles Symphony rehearse. Ayers is transported by the music, and Wright conveys this by resorting to a mid-’80s Pink Floyd Laser Show Special, the psychedelic abstracts synchronized to the music. 

It would be sophomoric, except that would be unfair to the sophomores out there.

The big payoff scene, where Lopez confides to his ex-wife just what life (and the movie) is about, is especially laughable. The moral is that you have to believe in something.

Both Downey and Foxx deliver solid performances that are wasted here. Downey deserves the Best Actor Oscar for saying “I resign from everything. It’s official,â€� with a straight face. 

Leaden dialogue, feeble attempts at slapstick involving urine and a bumper crop of cliches make “The Soloistâ€� an interminable ordeal. 

“The Soloist is rated PG-13 for subject matter, drug use and language.

It is playing at The Movie House in Millerton, NY, and the Cineroms in Winsted and Torrington, CT.

Latest News

Inez Godburn

NORTH CANAAN — Inez (Delaini) Godburn passed away peacefully on March 4, 2024, at Geer Nursing Home after a brief illness, with her children at her side. She was 101.

Inez was the widow of John E. (“Jack”) Godburn, Sr., who died in 2009.

Keep ReadingShow less
Nuvance hospital system to merge with Northwell Health

Sharon Hospital would become part of a larger regional health systems with 28 hospitals.

Yehyun Kim/CTMirror.org

Nuvance Health, which owns four hospitals in Connecticut and three in New York, will merge with Northwell Health to form a larger regional health system across two states.

Together, the companies will own 28 hospitals and more than 1,000 sites of care and employ 14,500 providers.

Keep ReadingShow less
Millerton director is an Oscar nominee

Arlo Washington in a film still from the Oscar-nominated short "The Barber of Little Rock."

Story Syndicate

John Hoffman, a Millerton resident, has been nominated for his film “The Barber of Little Rock,” which he co-directed with Christine Turner, in the Best Documentary Short Film category at the upcoming 96th Academy Awards.

Distributed by The New Yorker and produced by Story Syndicate Production in association with 59th & Prairie, Better World Projects, and Peralta Pictures, “The Barber of Little Rock” explores the efforts of Arkansas local hero Arlo Washington, who opened a barbershop at 19 years old and, with a mission to close the racial inequality gap in his community, went on to found the Washington Barber College as well as People Trust Community Federal Credit Union. Washington’s goal is aiding his primarily Black neighborhood, which has historically been underserved by more prominent banking institutions.

Keep ReadingShow less
Inside Troutbeck's kitchen

Chef Vincent Gilberti

Courtesy of Troutbeck

About growing up in Carmel, New York, Troutbeck’s executive chef Vincent Gilberti said he was fortunate to have a lot of family close by, and time together was always centered around food.

His grandparents in White Plains always made sure to have a supply of cured meats, olives, cheeses and crusty bread during their weekend visits. But it wasn’t until his family moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, when he was 16 that his passion for food really began. It was there that he joined the German Club, whose partnership with Johnson & Wales University first introduced him to cooking.

Keep ReadingShow less