The Soloist
My husband and I saw The Soloist last friday. I have never seen before a movie that so clearly and accurately portrays mental illness and its effects on relationships. I was amazed by the film's reality. Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. were both excellent. The actress who plays Robert Downey was also very real. I forgot she was an actress -- really my best compliment. The sister, the man who ran the community center where Jamie Foxx was taken, the misguided people who at times try to help him and Jamie Foxx's and Robert Downey's characters were all sensitively written and acted. I was impressed with how they portrayed the experience of those who care about a mentally ill person, even the temptation to trick them into treatment and housing or the worse one to engineer an incident to prove they were a danger so they can get treatment. This is all very real.
The movie made real efforts to have the viewer empathize with the Mentally ill and have us experience their illness as they do. I felt they went a long way to achieving that. But of course only a person in the midst of the disease can tell us.
My husband and other reviewers criticized the movie's lack of resolution. They felt it needed more narrative structure and didn't really have an ending.
I disagree. I felt the movie was true to reality. There is no resolution for many of the mentally ill. They just go on getting on. Portraying that was the film's strength in my opinion.
ETA: I wrote this rec and never once said how much I enjoyed the movie. I loved it. The story was engrossing and the acting was excellent. I enjoyed the characters and wanted to spend time with them. Go see it.
The movie made real efforts to have the viewer empathize with the Mentally ill and have us experience their illness as they do. I felt they went a long way to achieving that. But of course only a person in the midst of the disease can tell us.
My husband and other reviewers criticized the movie's lack of resolution. They felt it needed more narrative structure and didn't really have an ending.
I disagree. I felt the movie was true to reality. There is no resolution for many of the mentally ill. They just go on getting on. Portraying that was the film's strength in my opinion.
ETA: I wrote this rec and never once said how much I enjoyed the movie. I loved it. The story was engrossing and the acting was excellent. I enjoyed the characters and wanted to spend time with them. Go see it.