Overview
Awards
- Film Presented
- 2008
Cast & Crew
- Cast Members
- Jamie Foxx Nathaniel Anthony Ayers
- Robert Downey, Jr. Steve Lopez
- Catherine Keener Mary Weston
- Tom Hollander Graham Claydon
- Lisa Gay Hamilton Jennifer Ayers-Moore
- Rachael Harris Leslie
- Stephen Root Curt Reynolds
- Nelsan Ellis David Carter
- Jena Malone Lab Technician
- Crew
- Joe Wright Director
- Gary Foster Producer
- Russ Krasnoff Producer
- Susannah Grant Screenwriter
- Steve Lopez Book Author
- Seamus Mcgarvey Cinematographer
- Dario Marianelli Composer (Music Score)
- Paul Tothill Editor
- Sarah Greenwood Production Designer
- Rikki Lea Bestall Co-producer
- Tim Bevan Executive Producer
- Eric Fellner Executive Producer
- Patricia Whitcher Executive Producer
- Jeff Skoll Executive Producer
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