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Reviews Counted:182
Fresh:100
Rotten:82
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: Though it features strong performances by its lead players, a lack of narrative focus prevents The Soloist from hitting its mark.
Theatrical Release:Apr 24, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $31,670,931
Synopsis: 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... [More]
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander
Director: Joe Wright
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"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.
A deliriously imperfect film – and all the better for it.
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.
Wright’s major mistake is the flashback to Nathaniel’s background. Mundane, TV movie simplistic and, ironically, very middle-class patronising, it causes the film’s trajectory to go limp.
The Soloist isn't the cringe-worthy Rain Man rip-off it might have been, but that's the only surprise this film has to offer. If it were a piece of music, it would be the kind you hear in a lift when you're stuck between floors...
Thankfully, there's no contrived Hollywood ending but you can't help thinking this is more a three-minute wonder than a dramatic symphony.
Thanks to heavy-handed treatment, this true story ultimately feels like a work of mannered fiction.
A rich cocktail of all Hollywood's most endemic clichés, it would be easy to apply to The Soloist that rebuking tag, 'Oscar bait'. Its every move is calculated to pleasure and provoke the liberal classes, if only gently.
Foxx is an Oscar-winner thanks to his uncanny impersonation of Ray Charles in Ray, but he plays Ayers as a multitude of tics and non sequiturs. He is hampered by Susannah Grant's muddled screenplay.
This veers a little too haphazardly between being a message movie and one of those films about an unlikely friendship. In the end, it fails to work as either.
The Soloist is a moving and well-made film, but you just can't help feeling it is a little too contrived and simplistic.
Joe Wright, who did a brilliant job with Atonement, powerfully reveals the terrible treatment of America's homeless community.
The revelation of poverty, squalor and mental illness in LA’s underclass is horrific. But the film suffers from uncertainty of tone.
Its oddness is chastening: what's ostensibly a triumph-of-the-spirit number doesn't make you feel very triumphant after all.
A genuinely moving story is wrung dry by filmmaking that strains to punch every emotional plot point. Solid performances and some edgy insight can't quite rescue it, although the extraordinary true events retain real power.
April 23, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Fighting Is Down For The Count
This week at the movies, weve got bare-knuckle bouts (Fighting, starring Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard), the wonders of nature (Earth, narrated by James Earl Jones), a... More...
April 23, 2009:
Box Office Guru Preview: Don't You Dare Mess with Beyoncé's Man
The environment needs saving so Hollywood is doing its part to go green by opening recycled versions of Fatal Attraction and Fight Club in hopes of attracting young adults. In a... More...
April 21, 2009:
Five Favorite Films with Director Joe Wright
Earlier this decade, Joe Wright directed two very English movies from two very English novels, both which had the fortune of achieving international crossover appeal. 2005's... More...
April 20, 2009:
Jamie Foxx riveting as schizophrenic savant in his best role since Ray. 
More...
Take a look at MSN's choices for the Top 10 films of 2009.
What were your favorites? Least favorites? The funniest and scariest? Moviefone wants to know!
Hollywood.com explores why QT's characters resonate so well with audiences.
TIME chimes in with their own list of the best films released this year.
Click through to see which movies BuzzSugar placed in their Best-of-Decade list!
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