The Soloist
Post to Twitter
The Story
Based on true story from a book by “L.A. Times” columnist Steve Lopez (played by Robert Downey, Jr.), “The Soloist” explores Lopez’s relationship with a homeless man he first encounters on the streets of Los Angeles skillfully playing a violin with just two strings. Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) is a once-promising cellist who bombed out of the famed Julliard music school due to his encroaching mental illness.
Lopez is fascinated by Ayers and writes a column about him, but he also begins to care about the man as a friend and wonders what he can do to help him. One of Lopez’s readers donates a cello for Ayers, who is appreciative to Lopez. But even as the pair begin to bond, Ayers’ disability remains.
How far should Lopez go to interject himself into Ayers’s life? Should the homeless man be forced off of the streets and into a facility? Should he be made to take drugs? Can performing music really heal his mind, in a way? None of the answers are easy or obvious.
Content Issues
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity, violence, and drug use. The language is pretty strong for a movie with this rating, with several uses of God’s name in vain and a few f-words.
Worldview Talking Points
This moving story of an unlikely friendship between a reporter and a talented, mentally ill homeless man may attract an Oscar or two. From a worldview perspective, it encourages us to help where we can and to think about the limits of our human ability to change the hard reality so many people live with.
It raise questions for some viewers about how God can allow such suffering, about why He does or doesn’t “fix” people like Nathaniel Ayers. The film features two types of Christians. One agrees to help, but comes across as preachy and self-righteous.
The other group is represented by the LAMP organization. This Christian ministry sits in the worst of Los Angeles and there provides an atmosphere of safety, unconditional love, and compassion to men and women with profound issues related to mental illness, addiction, and poverty.
A few of the following questions may help you to generate a good conversation with your son or daughter about issues of homelessness, servanthood, and ministering to “the least of these.”
- Were you impressed by “The Soloist”? What did you like most about it?
- Do you think you would have done as much to help Nathaniel Ayers as Steve Lopez did? Why or why not?
- Have you ever known anyone who is or was at one time homeless? How about anyone who struggles with mental illness?
- Music is a huge part of Nathaniel Ayers’s world. In some ways, it keeps him grounded and gives him a type of hope or peace. In what ways does music help you in your life?
- Were you impressed with the people who worked for the LAMP organization? Why do you think someone would agree to do that kind of work?
- Do you think it’s part of our job as believers to find ways to help people in terrible circumstances? Do you think we take that job seriously enough?
- How important is it that Christians be involved in these kinds of helping efforts? Is it any different from non-Christians or government agencies doing the same work? Why or why not?
- What are some way we as a family—or you by yourself or as part of a church group—could help people who are homeless or in poverty or struggling with disease?
- Were you surprised by the end of the movie? Do you think those decisions were right?
- Is there such a thing as trying to help people too much? What are the limits of what we can do to help people like Nathaniel Ayers?
