May I recommend the film The Soloist. This is a truly lovely and thought provoking film. It is directed by Joe Wright who also directed Atonement and Pride and Prejudice. He manages to steer clear of the sentimental traps that a film like this could have. It also feature two of the best performance I have seen from Robert Downey Jnr and Jamie Foxx. Downey plays Steve Lopaz, a Los Angeles Times columnist who in 2005 starts writing a series of articles about the musician Nathaniel Ayers, played by Foxx. He was once a Julliard cello prodigy, but suffering from severe schizophrenia did not complete the course and ended up on the streets. Lopaz feels he can help Ayers by getting him into LA’s Lamp Community providing shelter and medication. But this is not the best way to help him. During the film you ask yourself is Lopaz just trying to exploit Ayers for his own career or genuinely trying to help him. At the end of the film they both gain something from this symbiotic relationship, but is perhaps Lopaz who has gained the most. There is a real communication and bond between the characters, who can never truely connect.
The film also gave the shocking statistic that their are 90,000 homeless in LA a town that has at the other end of the spectrum so much wealth.
The score was also excellent with music by Dario Marianelli.