The Soloist

The Soloist (2009) is a Joe Wright drama you can watch online on iFILM. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is out hunting for his next column when he stumbles on a homeless man playing Beethoven on a violin missing two of its strings.

The musician's name is Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx). He once studied double bass at Juilliard, until illness knocked his life off course and left him sleeping on the pavements of Skid Row. At first Lopez sees a ready-made story, but the column drags him somewhere else: trying to get the man a roof, a cello, his name back. The closer they grow, the clearer it becomes that you can't fix another person's life on your own timetable, and the friendship turns out messier than the reporter bargained for.

It draws on Lopez's real columns and his book about Ayers. Wright doesn't shoot a tidy rescue tale but a film about schizophrenia, homelessness and the limits of what one person can do for another. Catherine Keener and Tom Hollander appear alongside. Stream The Soloist (2009) online on iFILM.