The Soloist: Liberal Sentiment Flapping in the Wind
The Soloist has more American flags than Rocky IV, and each is there to tell us that we should hate Bush and/or America for neglecting the homeless.
A drama about social problems disguised as a triumph-of-the-human-spirit story, The Soloist is also, perhaps unintentionally, a neat summation of how liberal thinking boils down to one symbol: a soiled, tattered American flag — emblem of our supposed shame — and one phrase: “Force him.”
Robert Downey Jr., who, as always, is excellent, plays real-life Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who is reduced to writing about his own inability to ride a bike without smashing up his face. He happens across a homeless guy (Jamie Foxx ) who talks incessant nonsense but beautifully plays a violin that has only two strings. Somewhere in the river of babble, Lopez hears a word that piques his interest: Julliard. It turns out that the hobo, Nathaniel Ayers, was once a student there, and that he plays the cello too, or would, if he had one.
Set in 2005, the first hour of the movie passes pleasantly enough, with a grounded sense of Los Angeles and a now-nostalgic love for the rumble and whirr of the newspaper business, which just four years later has become as quiet and solemn as a church service. If Lopez can’t track down Ayers again, he may have to write a column on the virtues of reconstituted coyote urine, which in L.A. is apparently valued for its varmint-chasing uses when sprinkled on your lawn. Although, given the city we are talking about, it may be only a matter of time before the same liquid comes into vogue as a spa treatment or breakfast drink.
Halfway through the film though, Brit director Joe Wright (Atonement) becomes uncomfortable with the idea that it’s only about two guys and the city around them. No, it has to be about America. Deep, dark, flawed America. The Soloist has more American flags than Rocky IV, and each is there to tell us that we, as a country, have failed our least fortunate citizens. Ayers sleeps on a filthy, ragged American-flag pillow. He wears an American-flag top hat. In several nightmare sequences set in a community center on Skid Row, American flags pop up everywhere — nasty, dirty ones. Occasionally we get a glimpse of a TV set showing us an image of President Bush, or hurricane Katrina, or the Iraq War dead. The message couldn’t be more blunderingly obvious: We’re meant to hate Bush and/or America for neglecting the homeless.
Lopez pushes to save the schizophrenic and sometimes violent Ayers from himself. He asks the leader of the community center for Ayers to be diagnosed and treated with the proper drugs. The guy who runs the place informs him that everyone there has been diagnosed and medicated plenty, to no avail. Ayers refuses to live anywhere but the street. Lopez’s chilling solution? “Force him.”
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Kyle Smith is a film critic for the the New York Post. His website is at www.kylesmithonline.com.
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41 Comments
1. Tomp:We’ll not hear about the homeless during the Obama reign. The homeless only appear as a problem during Republican administrations. Just ask any ‘newsman’.
Apr 24, 2009 - 5:20 am 2. bill:He went to Julliard and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him? If he screwed that up, he deserves what he gets.
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:03 am 3. Robert Hurley:Bill – Are you a Christian?
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:41 am 4. Jbl:When I saw this film was directed by the fellow who also directed ATONEMENT I knew I would not see it. He is a director who despises his audience and thinks a great deal of himself. His work is intellectually dishonest and frankly, overlong.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:08 am 5. Fred:I wonder if some people will skip “The Soloist” because it stars Jamie Foxx. Sure, Foxx apologized for his cowardly, vile, and unprovoked verbal attack on teen star Miley Cyrus. But I don’t think everyone is ready to forgive him for his stupidity and lack of class.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:21 am 6. not so fast:Two choices: ignore it or make your own movie.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:24 am 7. Pastor of Muppets:I don’t think we ought to blame Bush for the rampant homelessness in this country. We should blame Reagan for that. Besides, there are plenty of other legitimate failures to blame Bush for.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:26 am 8. Steve:Look out everybody….. Mastor of Puppets is here.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:32 am 9. bill:Master of baiters (sorry, puppets)
Weren’t Democrats in control of both houses of congress for all but 2 years during Reagan’s tenure (then only the Senate)? Are you sure you understand how the US government works?
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:20 am 10. Odysseus:Reagan didn’t create the homeless. Those cities that had rent control and forced deinstitutionalizion of the mentally ill created the homeless, and the “advocates” made sure that they stayed that way. When Ed Koch tried to get Billy Boggs, a deranged homeless woman who lived on a steam grate, off the streets, the homeless advocates kidnapped her, cleaned her up and got her enough treatment to be coherent at her hearing. The judge cut her loose, she made close to a hundred thousand dollars in the next year in speaking fees, then blew that in a few weeks at the Plaza hotel. She ended up back on the steam grate, and the program that Koch tried to institute failed. Reagan had nothing to do with it.
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:31 am 11. Andrea:Any thing with Jamie (spelled like a girl) Foxx in it is not worth spending even one cent on. A real man doesn’t use an innocent bystander to promote himself to earn a living. What’s in your daughter Foxx?
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:31 am 12. Mark:Not so fast, “not so fast.” There are far more than those 2 choices, especially once one has, as has Kyle Smith, seen the movie. As for me, I will ignore it, but if anyone asks me about it I’ll now have a least some information about it, or at least one reviewers perceptions of it. That’s useful, making this published critique a good choice by Kyle Smith.
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:32 am 13. urbanleftbehind:I thought Downey was a pseudo-Conservative; in real-life he actually is pretty adamant about confronting your demons and actually going cold turkey….makes me wonder if he’s teetering off the wagon again (you know, doing this film for the money)?
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:00 am 14. Pete:Sorry but I am done with the do everything for the crazy enraged homeless people simply because it makes you feel better. You can’t force them on meds and you can’t force them into institutions thanks to the ACLU and the bleeding heart liberals, now they need to bask in the utopia they created.
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:15 am 15. Confessor:My wife and I were talking about seeing the movie. Now that I know about the cliched “message” and the anti-Bush bits, I’ll have to tell her I’ll only see it if I can bring a barf bag with me.
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:34 am 16. BigMike:Soloist,
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:40 am 17. Herb:Stop ignoring yourself and get a JOB! Now that is a Novel idea…….
No wonder wingers hate Hollywood so much. They view everything through politically tinted glasses.
Haven’t you people ever heard the phrase, “It’s only a movie?” I say skip this, go see An American Carol again.
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:42 am 18. CCW1970:Herb:
How can you be so obtuse? Yes, I’m sure “wingers” have heard of that phrase, and apply it when appropriate.
The problem is with films like “The Soloist,” whose creators choose to make political, either through subtext such as the imagery Smith refers to or overtly through plot and theme. Everything you see in a frame is carefully chosen. So, Wright knows exactly what he’s trying to say by putting these images in the film the way he does.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:12 am 19. Lee:I find it ironic how people are so quick to attack Foxx on his comments about Ms. Cyrus but you hear no mention of her adolescent tyraid that prompted Foxx’s harsh response. Was he hard on the young woman, yes he was. Did she warrant the verbal abuse, absolutely(albeit sans the profanity). If the little lady wants to play in a grown up world she better bring some ear plugs or better yet a muzzle.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:13 am 20. mnewman:Herb,
Kyle is just calling a spade a spade. (did i just write that?)
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:25 am 21. NahnCee:I despise Steve Lopez and his blithering Bush-hating liberalism. I’ve very much enjoyed watching as the LA Times has sunk lower and lower and lower towards total out-and-out bankruptcy, because that would, in turn, mean that Lopez had lost his forum to dispense smug little lectures towards the taxpayers of Los Angeles.
Alas, the thought occurs that however much he received from the equally smug and socialist movie studios for his screenplay idea will probably tide him over until he can swing a gig with Vanity Fair or Pravda to continue on his merry little America-bashing way.
AS Instapundit says, “faster please” towards both the LA Times and the studios who put how liberal-tilted movies like that in their oncoming bankruptcies and going-awayness.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:34 am 22. Spanky:I wouldn’t watch a Jamie Foxx movie for free. The man is a real low life creep.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:34 am 23. jasjfarrell:Mentally ill homeless people are a danger to themselves and others. The legal process to force them to do anything is non-existent.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:05 am 24. Dave:“The Soloist” is almost a plain copy of the movie “The Caveman’s Valentine” from 2001, which also shows a black man who is mentally ill who studied in Julliard and is very gifted piano player (I guess if the soloist was also a piano player it would look to similar
, Although the story revolves more about a murder. Just look at this trailer and see many similarities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haz6EuE8t-M
The soloist is another product of American laziness, lack of creative vision, and copycatting!
The Soloist is just a part of the wave of remakes, new versions of old materials, with no new twist, no new original layer, just using the old for a quick profit instead of trying to come up with something new and original.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:07 am 25. 38952R:“Any thing with Jamie (spelled like a girl) Foxx in it is not worth spending even one cent on.”
Jamie is a unisex name; it doesn’t have a male spelling or a female spelling. I mean, go ahead and criticize him for stuff he deserves to be criticized for, but this part is kind of pointless.
Apr 24, 2009 - 12:29 pm 26. Herb:“18. CCW1970:
Herb:
How can you be so obtuse?”
Obtuse? You wrote:
“The problem is with films like “The Soloist,” whose creators choose to make political, either through subtext such as the imagery Smith refers to or overtly through plot and theme.”
I have no problem with a film that has a political bent, whether it leans right or left. The crime here isn’t that the director made a political movie…it’s that he made a movie that’s politically liberal!
And to that, I say…so what?
Apr 24, 2009 - 1:33 pm 27. 1MPTomb:No one “created” the homeless. Povery, homelessness and mental illness have been around since God exiled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
Apr 24, 2009 - 1:46 pm 28. Andrea:38952R, I’ll always laugh when a male spells it this way. Just like I laugh when a male is named Dana, my sisters name. Is your name Jamie? Tee-hee-hee. Hope your Unicycle has has a seat on it.
Apr 24, 2009 - 2:12 pm 29. hadsil:You forgot to mention that this continues the Hollywood mantra that a homeless person has great insight the rest of us are deprived of seeing because we ignore them.
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:33 pm 30. CCW1970:Herb, you wrote, “Haven’t you guys heard of the phrase ‘It’s only a movie’?” as if this was just some yarn and didn’t have an overt political message. That’s why I asked how you can be so obtuse.
I don’t necessarily care if the film has a liberal political message. Heck, some of my favorite films do (mostly those from the 1970s).
It’s the lazy, obvious and all too common political message that’s been coming out of Hollywood for years now that we’re complaining about.
There is a huge difference between a good story with a political message and a film with a political message that’s so cliched it loses any goodwill the film’s story may have had. It’s the preachiness, overt or subtle, that we are so damned tired of.
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:02 pm 31. Deborah:Read the book; skip the movie (a shame really … Robert Downey Jr is a great actor).
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:08 pm 32. James:Pastor of Muppets: Yes, Reagan caused homelessness. Yes, there were no homeless people before Reagan. Yes, that evil Reagan plotted and schemed and devised to make more people homeless. He schemed to make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and thank God for people like you to point it out. I’ve worked with a private organization to help rehabilitate the homeless – which, by the way, seems to have a varied and broad meaning nowadays. TO A MAN (or woman), every homeless person I worked with (40 plus persons) had serious alcohol abuse, drug abuse, drug/alcohol abuse issues, serious mental issues, almost always combined with substance abuse. In fact, I’ve witnessed fairly sane people devolve into insanity from substance abuse. You want to help the homeless “pastor”? Then STOP making up fairy tales about the cause of the homeless. Reagan didn’t have the ability to cause of the issues I describe above. And as for Bush, any attacks happen on our soil in the last 8 years that I’m unaware of?
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:49 pm 33. thebronze:This article seals it for me. When I first saw the preview of this movie many months ago, I was looking forward to seeing it. But after Jamie Foxx’s disgusting rip on Milie Cyrus and now this article, I’ll be passing.
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:15 pm 34. Slick:Downey is WAY over-rated; Foxx DOES have a sissy name, is bereft of ANY talent, is UGLY and if Billy Ray doesn’t kick his butt he ain’t no man
Apr 24, 2009 - 9:32 pm 35. LawhawkSF:It isn’t really a complete ripoff of “The Caveman’s Valentine.” “The Soloist” kept the whole flag-making industry in business just so it could see how many creative ways it could insult the flag.
And let’s not downplay Democrat genius. Every time a Democrat is elected President, they make the homeless disappear for four to eight years, then magically reappear on Inauguration Day for a Republican President. If that isn’t magic, nothing is.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:33 pm 36. lee:I just can’t imagine why Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Steve Lopez. They look NOTHING like each other.
Here’s one of Hollywood’s problems – their “based on a true story” films depict events that the audience doesn’t care about, or even heard about. I live in LA and read the LAT, and I didn’t event recognize the film’s premise until I visited their website.
Patrick Goldstein, another snooty LAT writer, is already mocking Republicans in his article exploring the film as a new “hate America film”. Pay attention to the opening line.
Apr 25, 2009 - 12:35 am 37. ak:“They view everything through politically tinted glasses.”
Oh, please. I’m surrounded by liberals at work and elsewhere. They can’t talk about what they had for dinner without making it a political issue. In this case, Kyle Smith’s ENTIRE POINT is that the movie takes a human interest story and makes it into a political statement. But it’s all the wingers on this site who are bringing politics into it, right, Herb? Brilliant insight.
Apr 25, 2009 - 5:59 am 38. arhooley:>>23. jasjfarrell: Mentally ill homeless people are a danger to themselves and others. The legal process to force them to do anything is non-existent.
All true. We do them and ourselves a disservice by leaving them to their own devices on our streets, but it offends our morals to “lock them up” because that’s what we also do to bad people. We’ve got to — hm, force ourselves — to differentiate. We’ve got to get over our aversion to locking sick people up.
Apr 25, 2009 - 2:38 pm 39. Berlet98:If I may squeeze another movie review in here . . .
Frost/Nixon, An Excursion into Revisionist Fantasy
I freely concede I’m no movie critic with no pretense of being a Siskel, an Ebert, or a Roeper. I like movies with some action, a shot of titilating romance, involving mixed genders, preferably devoid of leftist propaganda and homosexual themes. Unlike television sitcoms, locating such films is still possible, if increasingly difficult, to find. Despite many reviews to the contrary, Frost/Nixon isn’t one of them.
I have no clue as to why it was honored with 5 Golden Globes and 5 Academy Award nominations except that those tributes were more reflective of Hollywood’s sharp liberal, leftist bent than the merits of the film. Frost/Nixon’s one saving grace was that it was devoid of homosexual characters, attributable to its 1977 setting, when most homosexuals were still in closets as opposed to their current infestation of American society and entertainment venues. Politically, it reeked and oozed liberal propaganda.
The absence of quality in the disjointed Frost/Nixon, which nevertheless was accorded accolades, was superseded by a blatant revisionistic interpretation of history. On top of all that, it was just plain boring, except for Frank Langella’s excellent rendition of the brooding yet brilliant figure of Richard Nixon. As for Michael Sheen, he should have stayed on his own side of the Pond.
Perhaps a swisher or two would have made the difference in Frost/Nixon, as comic figures, and it might have finished ahead of Milk as best picture of 2008. It sure worked for Brokeback Mountain, anointed the 2005 best picture winner because it “broke new ground” with its two homosexual cowboys. Frost/Nixon didn’t break any ground at all since Nixon has been trashed for half a century and usually with more historical accuracy.
David Paradine Frost was essentially a nonentity with a career circling the toilet when he conceived the idea of cashing in on the disgraced and almost-impeached Nixon. His project and the movie featured a series of one-on-one interviews with the former president, the plan being to get him to fess up that he was responsible for the loss of thousands of American lives and many more thousands of Vietnamese in the Viet Nam War and to admit complicity in the Watergate coverup.
The plan failed but you would never know it from Frost/Nixon which presents Frost as scoring a dramatic coup d’etat, which never really happened, although it’s hard to tell that from the reviews.
Google “Frost/Nixon” . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com/.)
Apr 26, 2009 - 3:12 pm 40. Mike2:Another junk movie I won’t be seeing.
Apr 28, 2009 - 4:12 am 41. Nomad:i’m not too excited about the Soloist, honestly; though “Collateral” and “The Kingdom” were good, Jamie Foxx tends have a bland acting style
Apr 29, 2009 - 9:28 pm