Director Joe Wright (ATONEMENT, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) brings the true story of an unlikely friendship to life in THE SOLOIST. An award-winning columnist with the Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) ultimately becomes an advocate for L.A.’s homeless population when he meets Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a talented musician who's been playing a two-stringed violin while living on the streets and battling mental illness. Struck by Ayers’s passion for music, Lopez begins to write a series of columns about his new acquaintance while attempting to get him off the streets and playing music again. Amidst numerous achievements and setbacks, Lopez and Ayers develop a friendship based on mutual respect despite their many differences, and Lopez rediscovers his humanity.

While the focus of the film is the relationship that develops between the two men, the film also tackles the harsh realities of homelessness and the plight of the mentally ill. Lending authenticity to the story, a number of L.A.’s homeless population were cast as extras in the film. An additional subplot is the quandary that daily newspapers face as the world and the news increasingly go electronic, and popular news becomes more sensationalistic. Foxx is both heartbreaking and life-affirming as Ayers, whose undiagnosed schizophrenia drove him away from Juilliard as a young man, and whose fierce independence keeps him on the streets. Downey Jr. turns in a nuanced performance as Lopez, who finally realizes that while he may not be able to save Ayers, he can accept him as he is. Catherine Keener, Lisa Gay Hamilton, and Tom Hollander appear in supporting roles.

Blu-ray Disc Features:

Region [unknown]
NTSC
Widescreen
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby True HD 5.1 - English, French, Spanish
Subtitles - English, French, Spanish
Additional Release Material:
Deleted Scenes
Featurette:
1. An Unlikely Friendship: Making The Soloist
2. Kindness, Courtesy and Respect: Mr. Ayers + Mr. Lopez
3. One Size Does Not Fit All: Addressing Homelessness in Los Angeles
4. Juilliard Piece
5. Beth's Story
Audio Commentary:
1. Director Joe Wright
Trailers:
1. Theatrical Trailer

Distributor Notes: Academy Award® nominee Robert Downey Jr. and Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx star in an extraordinary and inspiring true story of how a chance meeting can change a life. The Soloist tells the poignant and ultimately soaring tale of a Los Angeles newspaper reporter who discovers a brilliant and distracted street musician, with unsinkable passion, and the unique friendship and bond that transforms both their lives. The remarkable performances make for an unforgettable experience in what is hailed as “a courageous and uncompromising film” (Gene Shalit, TODAY).

Jamie Foxx: TV/Film actor
Robert Downey: American actor, CHAPLIN (1992), IRON MAN (2008)
Catherine Keener: Actress
Tom Hollander: 
Lisa Gay Hamilton: Actress

Joe Wright: Director, PRIDE & PREJUDICE (2005)

Gary Foster: PRODUCER
Russ Krasnoff: Producer

Susannah Grant: Screenwriter

Dario Marianelli: Composer, V FOR VENDETTA (2005)

"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 mentally ill musician."
3 stars out of 4 -- "The cello's evocative, often melancholy sound envelops THE SOLOIST, highlighting the poignant appeal of this heartfelt film."
"[I]ts commitment to the material feels honest, nowhere more so than in Mr. Downey's darkly shaded, nuanced performance, one that deepens this film with its insistence on the fundamental mysteries of human character."
"It's impossible not to be moved by THE SOLOIST, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx....The film is suffused with heartbreak and humanism, as it takes one man's grim story -- early promise, bright future, mental breakdown, despair -- and turns it into a spiritual meditation on friendship."
"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."