The Soloist

“Life has a mind of its own”

Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), a Los Angeles newspaper columnist hunting for his next story, stops to listen to a homeless man playing a two-string violin on the street. The man is Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a former Juilliard student now living outdoors with schizophrenia, and Steve starts writing about him. Joe Wright shoots Los Angeles in saturated color and cuts between the street and the music Nathaniel hears.