(2009) Beneath a statue of Beethoven, playing a violin with only two strings, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr (Jamie Fox), a bright, talented, homeless man (among the tens of thousands in LA), captures the interest of Los Angeles Times staff writer Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr), looking for a story for his "Points West" column.

"I apologize for my appearance," says Ayers. "I've had a few setbacks." "Me, too," replies Lopez, his face badly bruised and scabbed from a bicycling accident and in different respect homeless, following divorce from wife/editor Mary Weston (Catherine Keener).

In the logorrhea of free-association, stream-of-consciousness pouring out of Ayers's mouth, the street musician mentions having attended Julliard. Calling the elite school of music to validate the claim, Lopez is initially told that no one by that name graduated - "But then I don't have a story" - only to receive a return call that Ayers did enroll in 1970, dropping out at the end of his second year.

Acting on another piece of information Ayers provided, Lopez gets in touch with his sister Jennifer Ayers-Moore, who supplies back story on her brother. As a teenager he was the most gifted cello student ("I'm crazy about Beethoven") of his music tutor; giving up sports and all other interests, Nathaniel concentrated on practicing. "I hear the voice of God," said his mother when she heard him playing.

After reading Lopez's column about Ayers, a woman donates her cello as a gift; but as part of the deal, Lopez tells Ayers that he must leave the streets and come to the LAMP community (a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending homelessness, improving the health and self-sufficiency among those suffering from severe mental illness) to receive the instrument.

When Ayers doesn't arrive as expected, with a deadline looming ("story of a guy not showing up is not a story"), as comic relief, Lopez considers writing about coyote urine to discourage raccoons from digging up his lawn or atheists ("Anything else you don't believe in?")

Ayers does make an appearance, enthralling his listeners at LAMP "in this lost colony of broken and lost souls." At Julliard Nathaniel began hearing voices ("You're nothing … turn you white"), leaving him too disoriented to concentrate on his music. David, the director at LAMP, tells Lopez that Ayers (having as well an irrational abhorrence of cigarettes) has already had too many diagnoses, too much medication.

Trying to explain his awe of Ayers to Mary - "I've never loved anything the way he loves music" - Lopez's words "every now and then" reach the right reader and have some impact: Graham Claydon offers his studio with lessons to the man "suspended between boy genius and lost traveler." But Ayers, having placed a woman's bra on his cello & referring to Lopez as his god, frustrates with his paranoia the reporter's best efforts: "Do you want an opportunity or not?"

However, Lopez, afraid of commitments gone awry, doesn't want sole responsibility either for Nathaniel: "I thought I was helping someone." Following another incident backfiring on him, Mary reminds Steve: "You're never going to cure Nathaniel."

Joe Wright directed from Suzannah Grant's script based on Lopez's book with Lopez, Ayers, and his sister acting as consultants. Curiously, first singing "Mr Bojangles," then as co-composer of another song, and finally as a poster in Ayers's apartment, Neil Diamond makes repeated appearances.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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