Only when all hope is lost can true hope exist. It is situations like these where we can peel back the layers of our mixed motives, only some of which we are aware. It is amazing how a story can display such events and in so doing inspire it’s viewers to realize something about themselves that is so surprisingly simple and yet profoundly fits the patterns. Last night I watched the new movie The Soloist and I was convinced that I had just witnessed a masterpiece and my head was spinning. It is a story of redemption, hope, love and the impossibility of all three. One of the many things that struck me about the movie is the sheer impossibility of the situation that the reporter finds himself in. Throughout the movie he struggles with coming to grips with the fact that he can’t fix everything. He isn’t even really sure that he is helping this homeless street musician at all. As he comes to terms with the sheer impossibility he begins trying to assign blame to everybody he can think of. Then there is a great scene where he is at his wits end and the reporter’s ex-wife tells him that its not about whether or not he can fix it or not. She tells him that its about just showing up and being his friend. I won’t go into all of the details of the movie but I want to point out that this movie is not about the redemption of the street musician as the title of the movie might suggest. No I think that in the end it is the reporter that is redeemed from boredom and a sheer lack of passion. As a reporter he has built up a callousness and a sarcastic wit as a defense mechanism to be able to survive in the world he lives and works.
The second thing that really stood out to me was the connection that this movie seems to have to the movie the Big Kahuna. Again this movie, while it had a low budget, remains to be one of my all time favorites. Without giving an entire recount of that movie I want to give a basic summary. There are these three businessmen that go on a sales trip at a convention where it is vitally important that they meet this one particular client to make a big sale. One of the sales men is brand new to this business and is a devout Christian who tries to figure out how to weave Jesus into every conversation with every person he meets. The fall out comes when he does this with the very client that they need to make the big sales pitch to. However instead of pitching what he is being paid to pitch, he pitches Jesus just as you would pitch any other product much to the chagrin to the two other business men. The dialogue that ensues is some of the best ever written on the subject. They discuss the ethical lines and the nature of regret and being genuine. I think that the movie The Soloist would have been the perfect movie to show this young devout naïve Christian. I will it here and I strongly encourage you to go out and see both of these movies
