DreamWorks

The Soloist is based on a book written by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. The book was based on a series of columns the writer assembled involving his relationship with a street musician he happened upon while searching for material. Lopez was touched by the musician, Nathaniel Ayers, who was playing a violin with only two remaining strings. Still he was able to produce music that made the writer do a double take and begin to wonder what he was doing out on the street. Ayers’ ramblings made it immediately obvious that the man was suffering from mental illness. Their first contact revealed that the street performer was once a student at Juilliard.
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For first time screen writer Allen Loeb, Things We Lost In The Fire is quite an ambitious script. It relies almost completely on the writing and the performances that can be gotten from the acting leads. There’s really no place to hide in this story for anybody. And while I certainly found several elements of the story forced or contrived, there was an underlining emotion to the whole thing that carried through strong enough for the actors to find some very solid grounding. With that grounding Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro delivered what should have been award winning performances.
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