The backdrop is Los Angeles, which ultimately serves as a metaphor for the human condition, and it's depressing.
Throughout the film we are shown
alternating images and vistas of beauty and ugliness, order and chaos, light
and darkness: in one scene, the camera pans upwards from the literal underbelly
of streets where the homeless Mr. Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (played by Jamie
Foxx) lives to the bright shiny streets of downtown Los Angeles where Times
writer Steve Lopez (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) works. There are plenty of
more visually disturbing scenes to offset the bright, sunny beautiful scenes
worth seeing almost for their own sake. But the screenplay is not the driving
force of this movie. The driving force of this movie is, absolutely, the story
- no car chase, no explosions, no '"big reveal" twist ending...just a
heartwarming story.
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