FAQ for
The Soloist (2009) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Soloist can be found here.

In part. The Soloist is based on a screenplay by American screenwriter Susannah Grant, who based her script on a series of articles about cello virtuoso Nathaniel Anthony Ayers that were written by columnist Steve Lopez and published in the Los Angeles Times between April and November 2005. [The series of articles can be read here]. Lopez has since published a book about Ayers, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, And The Redemptive Power of Music, that was published in the spring of 2008 and from which Grant has also drawn material.

Nathaniel Anthony Ayers [b. 1951] is an gifted classical violinist, one of the few Black Americans trained on scholarship at the Julliard School in New York, who lapsed into mental illness during his schooling and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Fighting his disease, he eventually moved to Los Angeles where he became a homeless musician playing broken-down violins and cellos on various streetcorners.

Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.

One Day Like This by Elbow.

No. While Jamie Foxx is a talented pianist (it is actually him playing in the titular role of Ray) his abilities do not extend to bow instruments. He did train with Los Angeles Philharmonic cellist Ben Hong on proper technique, but it is actually the assistant principal cellist Hong that you hear in the movie.