Soul

Soul was released right at the end of 2020, a year where something as mundane as going to the movies and grabbing some lunch afterwards became a routine many of us would miss. How striking is it that so many seemingly insignificant aspects of our lives feed us the fuel we didn’t know were needed to keep going. When the time comes where we’ll get those events back, hopefully they’ll be looked upon with appreciative eyes. Without these things, many of us were left to our own devices; the ability to find life in simply living if we were lucky enough to not be hit as hard by the pandemic as some. Pixar’s new film strikes at the chords of unappreciative moments, suggesting to seize them as a reminder that we’re alive, because that is what should ultimately be cherished.

Soul continues the Pixar tradition of creating an entire universe from asking the question of what if? What if toys, monsters, rats, bugs or cars had feelings? Inside/Out asked how feelings in general worked. Soul, directed by Pete Docter, explores ambitious ideas with the help of gorgeous animation and the simplest of insights, creating an imaginative and moving picture about how a person is hardwired to love something, and what that means in respect to living one’s life. I didn’t think it was as great as Docter’s last two outings (Up, Inside/Out), and it certainly isn’t inclusive for all ages, but Soul made me smile in the way you do when the beauty of a sunset makes you forget your troubles, however so briefly.

Soul follows Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a middle school music teacher from New York City who dreams of a career in jazz, even though he’s never been able to catch a big break. One day, Joe learns of an opening in the band of jazz legend Dorothea Williams and auditions for it. Impressed with Joe’s piano playing, Dorothea offers him a chance to perform later that night. As Joe happily heads off to prepare for the show, he falls down a manhole and dies. He finds himself as a soul heading into the “Great Beyond”. Unwilling to die before his big break, Joe tries to escape but ends up in the “Great Before”, where soul counselors—all named Jerry—prepare unborn souls for life. Each soul has a badge which, once filled out with traits, grants passage to Earth. Mistaken for an instructor, Joe is assigned to train 22 (Tina Fey), a cynical soul who has remained in the Great Before for millennia and sees no point in living on Earth. She needs to find her “spark” to complete her badge and agrees to give it to Joe so that he can return home.

How all of this is presented by Docter and his team at Pixar is part of the film’s many joys. Pixar has this remarkable ability to think outside the box, all the while making their execution plausible. The visuals in the afterlife are a combination of vast and humorous. The ideas of how souls and personalities are formed before being sent to Earth provides answers while wisely avoiding questions about God. The afterlife is seen as a factory with rules and loopholes. A more upsetting area where lost souls wander offers grim suggestions as to how they may have got there, but the film leaves those ideas for more adult conversations. Perhaps even more impressive is the recreation of New York City, not just in look, but personality. As a New Yorker, Soul hit a little harder when asking me to appreciate what’s around me.

The narrative is a typical Pixar-buddy quest to solve an insane problem, all the while the characters learn to accept and embrace aspects of their existence they’ve been avoiding. Some may find the film’s second act, which mostly takes place in New York, to be too simple and a wasted opportunity of the film’s possible reach. That may be the difference in my preference of something like Inside/Out over Soul, but I was still awed a great deal, and found small moments between a mother and son, student and teacher, or barber and customer to be handled with genuine heart. Kids will absolutely find the film boring though. 22 may garner a few laughs with her hyper behavior, and a cartoon cat is always fun to look at, but this may be the first Pixar film where the audience needs to be grown to appreciate it. At least it’s without corporate influence, with no hint of wanting to use the film to sell merchandise.

The ending is a little abrupt, and I think Docter and his team wrote themselves into a corner, but I was still satisfied. If there’s a standout moment, it’s a late montage accompanied by the excellent score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that made me well-up. Pixar has made better films, ones that actually generated tears, and Soul got close to that. There’s a quick moment of the number seven train leaving the Queens-Borough Plaza station, heading to Manhattan and passing the “Silvercup” studio sign with the sunset in the background. I find myself standing at that exact spot in my commute from work, and to see it in this film as an image to be appreciated, it gave me great pause. Soul is the kind of movie that provides you with a much needed reminder that we all have better living to do.

Grade: A-