rated PG-13

By all accounts, in real life, Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless, schizophrenic Julliard dropout, and Steve Lopez, the L.A. Times journalist who wrote about him and got him off the streets, developed a real friendship. It’s a little disconcerting that there’s so little evidence of this in the screen version of their journey.

Jamie Foxx’s manic, motor-mouthed portrayal of the afflicted curbside maestro goes to some length to describe a man who, though certainly having seen better days, seems to have found his own solace—in this case, a retreat into the music he loves so much, which appears to calm the cacophony of voices scratching incessantly at the inside of his skull. Lopez, as played by Robert Downey Jr., discovers the musician sawing away at an old wreck of a violin in a bleak cement park, and launches a disturbingly opportunistic campaign to bring the man’s story to the people.

Though clearly positioning himself as a brave new voice for the disenfranchised, Lopez comes off more as an interloper and a manipulator, his every gesture of kindness underscored by a distinctly mercenary intent. Downey’s famous affability lends some degree of nuance and accessibility to the character, but there’s really no escaping the feeling that his developing “friendship” with Nathaniel is completely fabricated to fill Lopez’s need to hit his deadlines. When a genuinely sympathetic reader donates a cello to Nathaniel, for example, Lopez deploys it like a plot device to add a new angle to his article. Later, also in an obvious bid to keep his column interesting, Lopez secures an apartment for Nathaniel, apparently oblivious to the fact that Nathaniel, who keeps what little control he has by surrounding himself with constant motion and sound, is terrified of the consequences that solitude within enclosed spaces can have on his precarious mental state.

Though Downey’s jovial line delivery and quirky physical approach to the character invites the audience to like this man, as written, there’s very little shown onscreen of Lopez to assuage the dubiousness of his motives. In one of the film’s few moments of genuine emotion, it’s possibly a little too satisfying when Nathaniel finally snaps and gives Lopez a real dose of his pain.

And for a movie about the transformative power of music, there’s remarkably little transformation at work. Turns out, true mental illness is fairly impervious to the power of charitable acts. It may simply be a symptom of the fact-based nature of the narrative, but it’s something of a credit to screenwriter Susannah Grant (“Erin Brockovich”) that the story avoids many of the more common sentimental pitfalls of these kinds of movies (think “Shine” or “A Beautiful Mind”).

That said, director Joe Wright (“Atonement”) seems perfectly comfortable sliding into some remarkably hammy and heartstring pulling indulgences. Many of his shots, gliding smoothly over the city, offer a certain “Google Earth” perspective of order within modern complexity, striking a wry counterpoint to the confusion and claustrophobia that otherwise envelopes the story. But any potential lyricism of these camera moves is more often than not undermined by overboard Beethoven overtures and a preponderance of ironically angelic pigeons.

Though clearly attempting to bring some light to the plight of the downtrodden, this film seems, like the character of Lopez, a little too self-interested for its own good, and like Nathaniel’s violin, comes up at least two strings short. In the end, sadly enough, “The Soloist” is an exercise that exploits Nathaniel Ayers as much as, if not more than, Lopez did.