The Soloist: Critic Reviews

It's all a bit shapeless, yet made with sincerity and taste, and the two actors seize your sympathy.

The film is imperfect, periodically if unsurprisingly sentimental, overly tidy and often very moving.

A handsomely made but tonally uncertain film; it's unsure whether to be an old-fashioned inspirational heartwarmer, or a paranoid prose-poem about ruined lives on the city's dangerous margins.

While the narrative occasionally falters, The Soloist wisely avoids the pitfalls of the inspirational biopic by not tidily sewing things up. Instead, it presents a moving tribute to friendship and the power of music.

Hollywood loves the heroics of good intentions, but this is that rare movie that is just as interested in the road to hell.

The movie, for all its flaws, reminds us that everyone is worth catching, but it's the actors who best embody that message. They go the full human being.

Foxx and Downey's disciplined duet come close to redeeming The Soloist from its visual excesses.

A workaholic roused to life by his contact with an extraordinary person. Music healing all ills. The rehabilitation of an impaired genius. The only reason any of this is barely watchable is because of the stars.

Mr. Wright and his colleagues have made a movie with a spaciousness of its own, a brave willingness to explore such mysteries of the mind and heart as the torture that madness can inflict, and the rapture that music can confer. Bravo to all concerned.

It took guts. And I suspect there's no sense in making a cautious film about Nathaniel Ayers.

While the film is unable to resolve its central subject, its background portrayal of the ongoing dissolution of the newspaper industry -- captured in a few fleeting images of layoffs and downsizing -- is vividly realized.

Perceptive [and] deeply engaging.

The Soloist is like its two protagonists: It's a little messy and beaten up in spots, but ultimately it's decent and dignified.

The movie is a noble enterprise, and Downey is stupendous as usual, but Joe Wright's direction is too slick to elicit much feeling.

I don't know if Beethoven and a sympathetic newspaper reporter can redeem a messy American city, but this movie makes a plausible case for so fervent a dream.

The Soloist has all the elements of an uplifting drama, except for the uplift. The story is compelling, the actors are in place, but I was never sure what the filmmakers wanted me to feel about it.

Backed by his newfound A-list stardom, Downey brings to the project a wry swagger -- crucial in an essentially reactive role. I wish, though, that "The Soloist" hadn't spent so much time dealing with Lopez's crises of conscience and career, even as they r

The tone of The Soloist is wildly uneven. Though unsparing and unsentimental when framing the principals, Wright is hyperbolic when depicting the agitation of the mentally ill and the soothing rapture of music.

The Soloist is pitch-perfect, a sensitive rendering of challenging social and emotional themes.

The Soloist foregoes easy solutions, and even more importantly, it foregoes any easy sense of friendship.

Wright has Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., both outstanding. Their performances make up for the meandering plot and occasional missteps; neither actor is ever anything less than compelling, giving The Soloist an emotional heft it might not have enjoyed.

The Soloist is a moving, inspirational story told in a straightforward style, refreshingly devoid of sentimentality.

Mr Downey and Mr. Foxx both turn in Oscar-worthy performances in their very strenuous and detail-drenched roles.

Neither rarefied art film nor widely accessible inspirational drama, The Soloist falls between the cracks both creatively and commercially.

A failed and problematic Oscar hopeful being dumped in theaters a week before the start of Hollywood's summer season.