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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Asia Pacific World Search Search: Downey, Foxx duet memorably in "Soloist" Reuters - Tuesday, April 21 By Kirk Honeycutt ADVERTISEMENT LOS ANGELES - Steve Lopez's columns in the Los Angeles Times about his relationship with Nathaniel Ayers, a schizophrenic homeless man who once studied music at Juillard, eventually turned into a highly praised book. The film version of "The Soloist" takes a somewhat romanticized view of both journalism and skid row yet is nevertheless a compassionate and compelling look at mental illness. Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx are on fire in the lead roles: They're both charismatic as hell without sacrificing any of the emotional honesty necessary for you to believe that these movie stars are a scruffy reporter and a mentally ill musician. "The Soloist," which Paramount Pictures releases Friday , should hit the target for older adult audiences, perhaps sharing the demographic that made a box-office success of "A Beautiful Mind." The two films share a theme, but in the end are much different looks at schizophrenia. When the release date for "The Soloist" was postponed from late fall 2008 to this year, there was talk about how the date change would cause Downey and Foxx to miss out on possible Oscar nominations. True, Academy members tend to remember only the last three months of a year when voting, but these performances are extraordinary enough that the memory should not fade by fall. Making his first film in America, British director Joe Wright is intrigued by the other side of glamorous Los Angeles, the downtown skid row district where hundreds of homeless people and families must find shelter each night and where Steve Lopez found the story of a lifetime. As Lopez himself has pointed out in a column, the "Steve Lopez" in this film bears only a faint resemblance to his actual self. Despite what Susannah Grant's screenplay insists, he is, in fact, married and not divorced. Apparently being married didn't fit the filmmakers' image of an old-school newspaper columnist -- who must be a rumpled curmudgeon whose personal life is a mess but who has time to hit bars to down shots and think mighty thoughts. Otherwise, the film does accurately follow the trajectory of his relationship with Ayers, starting with their first meeting, when Lopez coolly calculates the possibilities of a column about a homeless man who clearly knows how to play a ragged, two-string violin. When Nathaniel's story checks out -- he was a child prodigy in Cleveland and did attend Julliard until mental illness set in -- Steve gets his column. The huge reader response to that single column all but forces Lopez to participate in Nathaniel's life, first by delivering the musical instruments sent from readers and then to secure housing, medical treatment and even lessons from a Philharmonic member. What Steve discovers is that nothing he does can truly "cure" Nathaniel, but by being a friend, by watching his back, he can do considerable good. Along the way, Steve himself learns an important lesson in courage and humility. He may even get back together with that ex-wife and fellow journalist . His encounters with the extreme living conditions and governmental indifference to homeless conditions in downtown enrage him. The film's skid row scene unfolds like something out of 1948's "The Shake Pit," with extras encouraged to act out frightening psychoses and criminality. However theatrical its approach here, the movie does show -- as indeed was the case -- that because of Lopez's columns, the mayor and other officials did a major rethink about the city's attitude toward its homeless residents. While the film never asks to what degree Lopez's relationship with Nathaniel is self-serving, if not exploitative, Downey's take on the columnist is not always sympathetic. He plays "Steve Lopez" as sometimes abrupt and testy and resisting, if not resenting, how he gets dragged into his subject's life. Since few viewers know Nathaniel Ayers, it's impossible to debate the accuracy of Foxx's performance, but he certainly gets across the man's intelligence and humanity as he fights his own mind almost on a minute-to-minute basis. Music becomes Nathaniel's only way to shut out the world, to gain a smidgen of privacy on the crowded, noisy streets. In his head, perhaps, he is still practicing for a distant concert date. Wright certainly loves his camera crane shots, but they felt more appropriate in "Atonement" than here. The film may be a little too slick and self-conscious for its skid row setting, and it's off the mark with its depiction of a newsroom as a kind of locker room filled with comic banter and live wires in every cubicle. One thing is for certain: This will probably be the last movie to focus on a newspaper columnist. The filmmakers insist that the story takes place in a newsroom where laid-off employees are escorted off the premises by guards and bloggers are replacing guys like Lopez. You do have to wonder, though, if a blog about Ayers would have anywhere near the impact of Lopez's column. Doubt it. Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Recommend this article 0 users recommend Sign in to recommend this article » Most Recommended Stories » Related Articles: Entertainment & Lifestyle Spokesman: Jackie Chan comments out of contextAP - 1 hour 54 minutes ago Chinese modern dance enjoys taste of freedomAFP - Tuesday, April 21 Heir to The New York Herald Tribune dies at 95AP - Tuesday, April 21 Green Day announces summer tourReuters - Tuesday, April 21 Coachella organizers pull plug on the CureReuters - Tuesday, April 21 Most Popular – Entertainment Viewed Police nab Norwegian pair during high-speed sex Physicist Stephen Hawking 'very ill': university 'Beginner's luck' may lay trail to Cleopatra tomb PepsiCo beats profits forecast Bank of America profits roar, but loan losses loom View Complete List » Search: Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Southeast Asia Pte Ltd. (Co. Reg. 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