The Soloist

The Soloist is a working title film by British Director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) It stars Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx. The film was released in April 2009 (US) and September (UK).

• The screenplay is based on the book 'The Soloist' By Steve Lopez, the film is about the true story of Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx) a cello player who is discovered by Lopez (Downey Jr) a LA times newswriter.
• The film budget was $60 million, but covered just over half and gross revenue was $31 million.
• Some say that the poor revenue was due to the film being initially delyayed and coming a week before the summer 2009 film season.
• Director Joe Wright's biggest budget before this was in Atonement ($30million approx.) which in contrast made over 4 times the budget.
• Many critics felt the film was a 'mismatch' for Wright and that it was a relatively weak film compared to his succeses in Atonement and Pride & Prejudice.
• The film recieved only 55% on Rotten Tomatoes and 61/100 from metacritic.
• It was shot in Los Angeles mainly, with some shots in Cleveland.

Reviews

''The Soloist has the required combination of honesty and emotional pull to potentially inspire audience members to do more for the homeless in their community. I often roll my eyes at “message movies” for trying to shove self-righteousness down my throat, but I responded to this one and certainly recommend it.''

Cinema verdict 8/10

''With its heightened imagery and sound design, the movie tries its darnedest to intuit the troubled, disturbed existence of street-dwellers. This offsets the ­potential cheesiness – but without ­making for a very satisfying, involving film.''

Gaurdian 2/5

''Thankfully, there's no contrived Hollywood ending but you can't help thinking this is more a three-minute wonder than a dramatic symphony.''

Tim Evans - Sky Movies