Reviewed by Screenjabber
Stars Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr, Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander, Lisa Gay Hamilton,
Nelsan Ellis, Rachael Harris, Stephen Root, Patrick Tatten, Susane Lee | Written by Susannah Grant
UK certification 12 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 113 minutes | Directed by Joe Wright
Joe Wright follows up his Oscar-nominated Atonement with this Los Angeles-set tale of friendship and redemption. Jamie Foxx stars as Nathaniel Ayers, an schizophrenic homeless man wandering the streets of the City of Angels with only a two-stringed violin and his love for music (Beethoven and Mozart in particular) for company, who is befriended by Steve Lopez (Downey Jr), a disillusioned Los Angeles Times journalist, lost in the meaningless and frivolous stories he tells, who is struck by his musicianship. Writing about him in his column, he comes to learn more about Ayers, seeking to help ‘save’ him and get him on some medication that might help him, despite Ayers’ protestations, but as their friendship develops, the lines of who is helping whom become blurred.
Downey Jr and Foxx’s performances are subtle and moving, both inhabiting the skin of their characters with pathos and believability and without resorting to, in Foxx’s case, tics or mannerisms or, in Downey Jr’s, self-indulgence or pity. The film’s true story origins could lead to schmaltz and melodrama, but Wright, aided in no small part by Susannah Grant’s informed and insightful script, steers the film clear of these waters, instead taking up root on the grim and deprivation-addled streets of the city. It is beautifully shot, portraying LA as an illusory presence in the film and in Lopez and Ayers’ lives, one that veers from welcoming and reassuring one moment to hostile and dangerous the next, and then back again. Above all, the film strives for authenticity, not just in its portrayals of homelessness and mental illness, but it is emotionally honest and authentic too.
Its depiction of life on the street is troublingly true-to-life (many of the extras are real life homeless people), the lives of those troubled souls are never sugar coated yet tellingly aren’t universally painted with the insinuating overtones of drugs and crime either. The sense of community amongst them, and the relationships that are fostered, invite a more truthful perception to the one that is all too often shown, so the film strikes a similar chord in its depiction of mental illness. Ayers’ condition is shown in all its complicated forms, from whimsical flights of dislocated fancy to crippling paranoia and his occasional violent outbursts. Mental illness is not simplified for our consumption; sometimes there are no answers or quick fixes, and this is a theme that is carried over into the emotional journey the film takes us on.
A cello prodigy as a boy whose gift and unfettered enthusiasm has never been lost, flashbacks reveal the onset of Ayers condition as his life unravelled to the place at which he now finds himself, but the film, occasionally struggles to flesh out his earlier life, and similarly under-develops Lopez’s life crises too, the breakdown in his relationships with those close to him and with the world at large lacking depth and the honesty it achieves elsewhere. It does, though, cleverly weave in elements from a greater story through glimpsed news reel about Hurricane Katrina and other similar events; the people that society leaves behind and the ones who go unnoticed, it challenges us to question ourselves about our own preconceptions and motivations, just as Lopez seeks to help Ayers for his own personal fulfilment rather than being his friend. In doing so though, it lacks an element of depth as a result of its desire not to come with any preconceptions of its own.
EXTRAS *** An audio commentary witrh director Wright; five deleted scenes; a making-of featurette; and a featurette about Juilliard music school.