When I posted the first trailer for The Soloist the other day, I derided it as the kind of Oscar bait that shamelessly tugs at your heartstrings. So i was hoping that this featurette for the movie, posted to the Apple Trailers Page, would shed some light on the story and make it seem more than a simplified tale of uplift and lives being changed.

No dice. The featurette-- which, to be fair, may just be the first of many-- basically repeats the true story behind the movie, and pulls in the actual people for a little more background. The real Steve Lopez, the journalist who Robert Downey, Jr. portrays in the movie, and the real Nathaniel Ayers, Jr., the homeless musician played by Jamie Foxx, are interesting to watch together, but they seem to have had their lines put in their mouths by the studio chiefs looking for a good background story. Seriously, Lopez turns to Ayers during the interview and says, "You have enriched my life in ways that I can't begin to count." If they expect us to believe that people actually talk like this in real life, what will the movie try to make us buy into?

Check out the featurette below for yourself, and get an idea of the balance between schmaltz and truth that director Joe Wright is presenting us with. It's not too late for the talents of Foxx and Downey Jr. to save this whole thing, but I'm now even more doubtful.