Poor Richard’s Almanac

Our friend Ben at the movies, Take #4. May 19, 2009

On the recommendation of our friend Amy, our friend Ben and Silence Dogood went to see “The Soloist” yesterday. It was our first real outing since our puppy Shiloh arrived two weeks ago, and we were definitely ready for a little adult playtime. We’d taken Shiloh with us to the Emmaus Farmers’ Market in nearby Emmaus, PA in the morning, where she was fussed over by everyone, then for a walk. Back home, she had a vigorous play session with our neighbors’ cockapoo Ollie, so she was ready for a nice, long nap in her crate by the time we headed off for the 4:40 showing.

“The Soloist” is about a schizophrenic street person in L.A. who also happens to be a hugely gifted cello player. It’s based on a true story by the L.A. Times reporter and author Steve Lopez, who also figures very prominently in the film. Jamie Foxx, who plays the title character, Nathaniel Ayers, and Robert Downey Jr. as Steve Lopez are both marvelous. In fact, Robert Downey Jr. was so good that I didn’t even recognize him, and our friend Ben is an admirer of his performances. (He also displayed a wonderful facility for slapstick that I hadn’t suspected and enjoyed enormously.)

Our friend Ben loves classical music, especially chamber and Baroque music, so “The Soloist” would have been worth watching for the music alone. It would also have been worth watching for Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of a schizophrenic and his marvelous street-person persona with costumes worthy of a host of “Batman” villains. (But no worries, his character is benign.) When you take the music, the joyous portrayal of someone who found himself by losing himself, and Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as someone who’s so regimented by his own expectations that he would never have found himself were it not for this chance encounter, all together, the movie is amazing.

It’s also amazing in its depiction of the 90,000 homeless people currently living in L.A. Our friend Ben hopes that “The Soloist” will raise awareness of the complicated plight of the homeless across America, just as Steve Lopez’s real-life columns in the L.A. Times about Nathaniel Ayers raised local awareness about the plight of the homeless in L.A.

The fearlessness with which the camera lingers on the homeless is one of the reasons our friend Ben loved “The Soloist.” As with the life in the slums of Mumbai so graphically depicted in “Slumdog Millionaire,” these images will remain with you for a long time, if not forever. Maybe they’ll change you, too, as they change people throughout the film. But what ultimately remains for me, after the brilliance of the performances and the unflinching view of homeless life, is the portrayal of schizophrenia and what it’s like for its victims.

Our friend Ben and Silence have been blessed to be spared mental illness, but we have plenty of friends who suffer from depression and colleagues, friends’ kids, relatives, and etc. who suffer from a wide range of mental afflictions, from Asperger’s and Down’s Syndromes through depression and ADHD to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. “The Soloist” gave us a vivid window onto what these folks have to deal with every day. Not since the movie “Pi” (the mathematical symbol, not “The Life of Pi”) has our friend Ben seen such a realistic, gripping depiction of mental suffering. (In “Pi”, the mathematical savant hero suffers unbearable pain from crippling headaches, which are apparently the price he pays for his gift.)

Watching “The Soloist” is a great way to find a little empathy in yourself for people whose unpredictable behavior might otherwise simply seem scary, to realize that these people are as fully dimensional as we are, far more than the simple sum of their illnesses. I wouldn’t take a child to see this, but I’d happily take any adult who’d be willing to go. Don’t miss it. I guarantee it, watching this movie will make you grow as a human being. And few things in life can promise more than that.