We Need Not be Soloists

some thoughts on heroism, tokenism, and Robert Downey Jr.

I know what you were all thinking this week.

You’ve been thinking, Kevin, we are desperate for your thoughts on the 2008 book ‘The Soloist’ by Steve Lopez, and the subsequent film adaptation starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx. Well, lucky for you, I’m a mind-reader, and am here to provide that.

In all seriousness, I know many of you have likely not seen this movie, and even fewer have read the book. But I find it such a fascinating teachable opportunity that I would encourage you to continue reading nonetheless—I will tell you all you need to know.

I should also give this disclosure: I have met Steve Lopez, author of the book and the individual played by RDJ in the movie, many times when I worked in homelessness in Hollywood. I also have met Nathaniel Ayers, the “soloist” himself, once. Additionally, because of my work in LA I was privy to some stories about both of them that go beyond what most know about them from the book and movie. I won’t disclose any of that here, but it does inform how I approach this. Not in the way that “I know the real story”, but in a way that helps me recognize that the stories of real life are always bigger and messier than journalists and screenwriters can always capture.

The book and the movie are about an LA Times reporter named Steve Lopez and an unhoused man named Nathaniel. (The book is written by Lopez in first-person perspective.) Through a series of unlikely events, Lopez comes to discover Nathaniel, who frequent played a violin on the streets of Los Angeles. Lopez begins to develop a friendship with Nathaniel, discovering that he was in fact a prodigy of the cello who went to Juilliard before dropping out. The book and the film both, in different ways, chart Lopez’ up-and-down mission to try and get Nathaniel help in the form of housing and mental health treatment.

For those looking for an interesting story as a way-in to understanding homelessness better, The Soloist has some to offer. It’s a glimpse of homelessness in LA right before the Great Recession would come in and accelerate the catastrophe. It accurately chronicles some of the major obstacles people face in getting off the streets and into housing. It reflects the frustration and desperation that helpers also feel in this process.

However, The Soloist falls into the trap that befall many depictions of homelessness. In the quest to find/present a “character” who will elicit our compassion, empathy, and interest, an individual is elevated above the rest of the population. It’s a form of token-exceptionalism, where we are asked to say, “I can’t believe this person is homeless,” because he’s such an accomplished musician, which is just so interesting!

“I can’t believe he is homeless…” and what goes unsaid but nonetheless implied, “…not like these other bums.” Nathaniel isn’t seen as special simply for the fact of being human and therefore deserving better than his situation—he’s special in our narrow, market-driven sensibilities.

This becomes especially clear in the book, where Lopez coldly compares Nathaniel to others far too often for my tastes. The book, and the film to a lesser extent, also chronicles how aggressively Lopez pushes to get Nathaniel resources that are better or move faster than those available for everyone else. You feel Lopez bumping against systems that treat everyone as special and thus don’t give Nathaniel special treatment because he’s a musician or because a reporter is throwing his weight around.

And this becomes another unfortunate aspect of the book that echoes my criticism of Rough Sleepers—it’s far too interested in heroes. (This is especially off-putting as Lopez is authoring his own story here.) Lopez operates in his story as a mover, pusher, shaker on Nathaniel’s behalf, often overriding Nathaniel’s agency, privacy, and explicit desires. He learns some lessons along the way doing this and can be sometimes reflective, but you don’t really leave the book feeling like he’s changed all that much.

The movie, to its credit, fixes this second problem.

The version of Lopez in the film version is highly fictionalized. The bicycle accident where Lopez breaks his arm in the movie did not happen. The Downey Jr. version of Lopez is struggling to keep raccoons out of his yard—major “first-world problems” energy. In the film, Lopez works for his ex-wife at the Times, where in the book he was married the whole time. While some might accuse the film of creating these fictions just to mine drama, I find the choices to be very thoughtful.

By having Downey Jr'.’s Lopez break his arm, he starts from a place of brokenness. In storytelling fashion, as often in life, people need to be humbled to enter a period of learning. It puts him in a place of dependence and relative powerlessness where he will be able to see more of himself in Nathaniel, and Nathaniel in him. This theme emerges even more in the other changes. Two scenes really encompass it for me.

In an attempt to keep the raccoons out of his yard, Downey’s Lopez turns to an outlandish, desperate ploy. He purchases bags of coyote urine to hang from the trees in his yard as a deterrent. In an entertaining, albeit gross scene, Lopez ends up soaked in the urine when a bag ruptures while he tries to suspend it. Held up against Nathaniel’s reality, there is a fascinating funhouse mirror at work here: Nathaniel, schizophrenic and sleeping on the streets of LA for reasons largely outside of his control, lacks access to hygiene, and yet finds peace and tranquility playing music on a busted violin. The affluent Lopez, with a gorgeous LA property, is performing an outrageous ritual to keep his ample yard appearing beautiful and kept, and winds up covered in urine… smelling not unlike the streets Nathaniel has to call home. Which of them is more in distress? Whose reality is more “normal”?

The second scene features the fictional Lopez and his fictional ex Mary sharing drinks and talking about Nathaniel, and how this season of life and the relationship Lopez has formed is transforming him for the better. You see a spark between them, as though romance may be rekindling, before Lopez says something insensitive that triggers past hurt—Mary storms out. I love this scene because it shows Lopez engaging in the all-too-human act of self-sabotage. When things are going right, we humans are often prone to interrupt or hinder the process, often unintentionally—sometimes out of fear, and sometimes because we don’t think we deserve it.

Despite how common and normal it is, we rarely attribute this to people like Nathaniel. In my work, I’ve seen it time and time again. People’s journeys are never linear. In the long-run we can see the arc bending in a particular direction, but up close it can look like two steps forward and one back, at best. This is Nathaniel’s journey in both the book and the movie, and echoes so many of the stories I’ve been part of. What I love about the movie version is that it puts Downey’s Lopez in that same role—a broken relationship begins healing, but it doesn’t get a tidy, cinematic resolve. It’s messy; it’s true.

“The Soloist” is an apt name for this story, and its central problems. Stories about individual people—those downtrodden and those who help them—can be helpful as conduits of empathy and understanding for the larger group they represent. Nathaniel is incredibly special, skilled, and full of life—and so is every person experiencing homelessness, if you take a posture of listening and curiosity and radical acceptance. Steve Lopez, fictional or not, is just as human and broken as anyone, and if he’s willing to humble himself can learn from the Nathaniel’s of the world, and perhaps be in a position to assist Nathaniel—and himself—toward flourishing.

To end homelessness, we don’t need soloists; we need orchestras. We need partners, participants, players, partakers—we need people, warts and all.