The Soloist (2008)
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Reviews Counted: 200
Fresh: 112 | Rotten: 88
Though it features strong performances by its lead players, a lack of narrative focus prevents The Soloist from hitting its mark.
Average Rating: 6.1/10
Critic Reviews: 47
Fresh: 31 | Rotten: 16
Though it features strong performances by its lead players, a lack of narrative focus prevents The Soloist from hitting its mark.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 261,646
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Movie Info
Academy Award-nominated Atonement director Joe Wright teams with screenwriter Susannah Grant to tell the true-life story of Nathaniel Ayers, a former cello prodigy whose bouts with schizophrenia landed him on the streets after two years of schooling at Juilliard. Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is a disenchanted journalist stuck in a dead-end job. His marriage to a fellow journalist having recently come to an end, Steve is wandering through Los Angeles' Skid Row when he notices a bedraggled
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Cast
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Jamie Foxx
Nathaniel Anthony Ayers -
Robert Downey Jr.
Steve Lopez -
Catherine Keener
Mary Weston -
Tom Hollander
Graham Claydon -
Lisa Gay Hamilton
Jennifer Ayers-Moore -
Rachael Harris
Leslie -
Stephen Root
Curt Reynolds -
Nelsan Ellis
David Carter -
Jena Malone
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All Critics (202) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (118) | Rotten (91) | DVD (17)
A deliriously imperfect film - and all the better for it.
Top CriticIn the hands of a director more suited to the material The Soloist might have been a deeply moving experience. Here, we know something important is being played out before us, and there are times when it hits home with force. But in their exercise of dram
Has its moments, but too heavy-handed and predictable.
Tthis is a maudlin, stereotypical story that never moved at all.
The film's biggest problem lies really in its pacing. Every time the plot takes an interesting turn or moves forward, it's stalled by one musical montage after another.
I wish The Soloist had done more than pay lip service to this subject, but the traces of what might have been are still resonant.
The subject matter is a little too easy to overdo for that, but it is pretty good, thanks to a pair of fine performances from its leads and a director who understands understatement. And sometimes those can be as rare to find as a genuine musical prodigy.
The Soloist never completely transcends that Hollywood formula feel, but it has enough transcendent moments to make it worth recommending.
There's no crescendo in Joe Wright's drama.
While Downey and Foxx did fine jobs acting, the script they were handed was just so deliberately attempting to make the audience weep.
Develops the feel-good plot in true newspaper style: a few heart tugs followed by a punch in the face.
Una película sobre periodismo y marginalidad, sobre el poder redentor del arte y la solidaridad humana, sostenida por dos buenas actuaciones de Jamie Foxx y Robert Downey Jr.
The music's as troubled as the subject matter
"The Soloist" is not a film in which you anticipate Robert Downey Jr. will be twice doused in urine. Such are the territorial markings of Joe Wright, whose directorial quirks undermine moving moments and committed performances in this musical biopic.
The two actors work beautifully together, playing characters who are angry and frustrated in their different ways, and sentimentality is kept firmly at bay.
Intelligent and uncompromising, with knock-out performances from Downey Jr. and Foxx.
The Soloist brings to life its story with genuine compassion, neatly avoiding many of the traps that afflict Hollywood films about mental illness. And Jamie Foxx's transformation will simply astound.
Ultimately, the reason that The Soloist fails is because the writer and the director have been bamboozled by the seriousness of the subject matter.
A handsomely made but tonally uncertain film; it's unsure whether to be an old-fashioned inspirational heartwarmer, or a paranoid prose-poem about ruined lives on the city's dangerous margins.
The Soloist has its imperfections, but its ambition trumps them.
Audience Reviews for The Soloist
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Steve Lopez: I've never loved anything the way he loves music.
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Foreign Titles
- Der Solist (DE)
- Le Soliste (FR)
