89999 friends wanted
September 29, 2009
(The Soloist (USA, 2009), directed by Joe Wright, written by Susannah Grant, Steve Lopez, with Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr. , Catherine Keener)
If you’re looking for a conventional cinematic triumph, The Soloist is not it. The acting is confusing and emotionally flat. Apart from the pace of the dialogues which is right on cue, the direction seems to advance mainly in chunks and bumbles, fleeting brilliance all but lost among the jumble of the glittering unclear. Has Wright meant to reflect his character’s behaviour into his actors’ performances and into his filmmaking style? Has he earnestly tried to deliver a mainstream direction, but ended up making it a bit too heavy on the non-inspiringly inspiring side? It matters little, because the memorable parts and what make the film truly important are the quasi-documentary scenes of people who are still waiting for the good circumstances that might reverse what bad circumstances have made out of them. If you’re looking for a triumph of humanness, of the respect to allow others free choice over their fates and to help them along the way, regardless of how tough the journey and how heartbreaking the moment when simply witnessing the art they had the gift to produce is seen as an achievement, then The Soloist may be a good place to find it. And I loved this film, truly loved it, not least because it was so uncompromisingly unsatisfactory from an artistic point of view, as if it meant to say that decency is not a masterpiece, but a relay crosscountry running race. Which is how life is, I suppose.
