MPAA Rating: PG-13 Content Advisory: Adult Situations, Profanity, Drug Content Movie Release: 2008 DVD Release: 08/04/2009 Format:Blu-ray - Color,Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, French, Spanish Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 2 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 56 mins Studio:Dreamworks Video Members Wishing: 14 Genres:Drama, Docudrama See Also:The Soloist
DVD Synopsis
Academy Award-nominated Atonement director Joe Wright teams with screenwriter Susannah Grant to tell the true-life story of Nathaniel Ayers, a former cello prodigy whose bouts with schizophrenia landed him on the streets after two years of schooling at Juilliard. Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is a disenchanted journalist stuck in a dead-end job. His marriage to a fellow journalist having recently come to an end, Steve is wandering through Los Angeles' Skid Row when he notices a bedraggled figure playing a two-stringed violin. The figure in question is Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a man whose promising career in music was cut short due to a debilitating bout with mental illness. The more Lopez learns about Ayers, the greater his respect grows for the troubled soul. How could a man with such remarkable talent wind up living on the streets, and not be performing on-stage with a symphony orchestra? Later, as Lopez embarks on a quixotic quest to help Ayers pull his life together and launch a career in music, he gradually comes to realize that it is not Ayers whose life is being transformed, but his own. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide