Consider the highfalutin' pedigree of "The Soloist": two movie stars with four Academy Award nominations (and one win) between them, a newly minted prestige director, and a fact-based fable of salvation through friendship and music. A thinking person might question why such on-paper Oscar bait would get booted from its cushy release date during awards season only to be abandoned on summer's doorstep. Sure, the trailer made "The Soloist" look clichéd and sappy, but is "The Soloist" also really awful? If so, how awful are we talking? Will it make people depressed? Annoyed? Enraged?

Unfortunately, waiting for theater lights to dim can give one ample time to fret over the next two hours of one's life. Fortunately, however, such dismal expectations are hard to completely meet, and the modest charms to be found in the otherwise lackluster "The Soloist" come courtesy of its central duet.

Based on Steve Lopez's book "The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music," the film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist who pauses in Pershing Square one day in 2005 to speak to one of the homeless people he might not normally notice on his beat. The polite, friendly man is Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr. (Jamie Foxx), dressed like an adjunct member of Parliament Funkadelic but coaxing surprisingly lush sounds from a battered, two-stringed violin in the shadow of Beethoven's statue, his earthly possessions standing by in a nearby shopping cart.

One of the more lucid things to tumble from the lips of the likely schizophrenic Ayers concerns a stint at the famed Juilliard School, and as Lopez goes digging into Ayers' background in pursuit of the story about how a promising young virtuoso wound up giving impromptu recitals in the underpass, the two men form a tentative friendship that revolves around Lopez helping Ayers to reclaim his musical gifts.

With warm-toned flashbacks to Ayers' childhood and conflict hinging on his uncontrollable inner demons, "The Soloist" feels like standard musical biopic stuff, a la "Shine" or even Foxx's own "Ray." But the unfocused script, adapted by Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockvich"), doesn't seem to be sure whether it's actually about the title character or the world-weary Lopez, clearly trying to save himself by first saving Ayers. Grant also touches upon LA's homeless issue as well as the decline of print journalism, and that resulting inability to properly flesh out any character or arc enough to afford them any real emotional resonance causes "The Soloist" to hit only minor chords.

Don't blame the players, though, both of whom bring their unique talents to their respective parts. In the downtime between Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes, Downey has offered up yet another variation on his now-patented bemused cynicism, one that still somehow crackles with hope. Lopez's redemption occurs once he realizes that while he can write the story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr., the vagaries of free will won't let him dictate it.

And Foxx's sweet though unpredictable Ayers harmonizes nicely, even when his character's sometimes cartoony costuming threatens to distract from his beautifully modulated performance as a troubled, gifted man clearheaded enough to at least know what he doesn't want and suffused with the passion to understand what he needs. For Ayers it's about the music, as made clear by the naked ecstasy that crosses his face in its presence.

So maybe Joe Wright is to blame for this relative misfire. The director of 2005's flawless "Pride and Prejudice" as well as 2007's chilly "Atonement," Wright isn't an obvious choice to direct a gritty film about the relationship between a street Angeleno and a seen-(almost)-everything reporter. And he definitely seems a bit uncomfortable away from his period milieu, with sledgehammer symbolism - his depiction of the way Ayers sees music looks like a screensaver on acid - and a portrayal of LA's homeless population that veers between sobering and exploitive.

But anyone who marveled over that bravura extended take at Dunkirk in "Atonement" will be thrilled to know that Wright has reteamed with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey for similarly executed shots that swoop and dive throughout the City of Angels, treating the cold concrete slabs of the river basin and the undulating metal of Gehry's astonishing Disney Concert Hall with the same reverence. The camera, however, is the only aspect of "The Soloist" that truly soars.

The Soloist

(PG-13), directed by Joe Wright

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