| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Drama |
This movie tells the real-life story of Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) who is a musical prodigy who suffers from schizophrenia. He even studied at Julliard until his illness took over.
After years of shock treatment (you'll have to read the book to learn about this part as it gets cut from the movie) Ayers refuses to take medicine, and chooses to live on Los Angeles' Skid Row instead.
LA Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) starts writing about Ayers in his newspaper column, and the public response is phenomenal. Citizens send Lopez money, instruments and other outpourings of admiration for the subject of his writing. Someone even helps pay for an apartment for Ayers, a place he refused to stay in until Lopez convinced him it could be a place for him to practice his cello.
This is a movie about real people - human beings - that we look past and over every day on our way to work. It's also a movie about topics we avoid talking about, even though we should. It's about brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles - people in our very families that we often ignore or worse, try not to think about.
I'm only giving four stars because it cuts out huge chunks that were in the book, but not the movie. It's a little disjointed in some places and sort of focuses on Lopez instead of Nathaniel, who is the "star" of the movie. Still, this movie contains powerful messages about friendship and the topics I mentioned above.
Everyone should see this.
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