The Soloist is a drama film directed by Joe Wright. This is an interesting story of two people who find each other in this fast-moving world.
At first we get acquainted with Steve Lopez. He is a journalist and he has his own column in Los Angeles Times. He is a true newspaperman, his life is a mess and actually he is all alone. We find out that he has a trouble at his work and he has no topic to reflect in his articles. So he is afraid of loosing work, when suddenly he meets a strange street musician. It is Nathaniel Ayers, and he plays the violin with only two strings. Lopez is really impressed and decides to write about this miracle.
During his research he learns that Ayers once was a student at Juilliard, a prestigious music school, but schizophrenia made him leave and become homeless. Further we witness a difficult story of relationship between these two different people.
Both characters, depicted by Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., are true-to-life and frank. Lopez is a pragmatic person, and touchy story of the musician is only work for him, a way to impress public and to promote himself. But as the action pushes on, we see that there is something more. Lopez is so lonely, that he also needs someone by his side. And we see that he really wants to help Nathaniel and to make his dream come true. Nathaniel dreams to play at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
However, it is not so easy to help a mentally sick person. Nathaniel suffers from voices and sometimes it’s difficult for him to see where reality is and where is his fantasy. He feels better at the street, among people, than in a room where voices torture him. And music turns to be his medicine.
As a result he receives help from Lopez and public officials attracted to the problem. And Lopez himself also receives help from his new sincere friend. He finally becomes a new person with new values and new goals in his senseless life.
So, it is a very strong touchy story that teaches you many things and makes you think about problems of other people.