The story concerns Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), an NYC music teacher who harbors ambitions to make it big as a jazz pianist. One day, he auditions to join the band of a legendary saxophonist, Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett), and he gets the gig. Unfortunately, he then falls into a manhole and finds himself turned into a soul that is on the way to the "Great Beyond." However, he refuses to die right before he got the chance to realize all his dreams, and as he flees from the Great Beyond, he ends up in the "Great Before," the place where new souls are prepped before they head to Earth to be born. Due to some standard otherwordly shenanigans and administrative errors, Joe is assigned as a mentor to 22 (Tina Fey), a soul that has been lingering in the Great Before for thousands of years and has had mentors like Gandhi, Lincoln, and Marie Antoinette, all of whom have failed in helping 22 find her "spark," which will allow her to go to Earth. 22 is a cynic who thinks a life on Earth sounds appalling (I laughed out loud at one point when Joe was afraid he had hurt one of the souls and 22 went, "You can't crush a soul here, that's what life on Earth is for"), while Joe desperately wants to return to Earth and live out his dreams. What will happen next?!
If you read that plot description and thought to yourself, "how is this a kid's movie?" you are not alone. This is a visually stunning film with a great jazz score; maybe children would be content to stare at the swirling blue souls on the screen and have an audiovisual experience, but I don't see how any young kid is going to follow this plot unless they have already been burdened by the existential dread of being alive, which only happened to me at the age of twelve. For adult audiences, however, this movie is mandatory viewing. Also, at one point Joe and 22 do end up in NYC, so if you're a New Yorker, there's the added joy of getting to see the city in all its animated glory, complete with a cameo from Pizza Rat. In true Pixar fashion, there are great jokes from the writing team of Pete Docter, Mike Jones, and Kemp Powers (who was promoted to co-director with Docter after all his contributions to this movie) including one where Joe asks 22 why she sounds like a middle aged white woman and she replies, "because it annoys people."
This is the first Pixar film to feature a Black protagonist (and Powers is their first Black co-director) and a lot of care and love has gone into ensuring the Black characters in this movie are portrayed accurately and animated in a way that subverts the history of racist caricatures in old cartoons. The voice cast in this movie is also particularly fascinating as it features many international stars whose voices were so familiar to me yet took a second to place, including Richard Ayoade, Graham Norton, and Rachel House. It was clear that every actor was having fun chewing on this elaborate script and delivering insanely complex and witty dialogue that deals with man's fundamental question: what is the point of living? Much of this movie is centered around finding 22's "spark," and I can honestly say that it sums up in less than two hours everything I've been talking to my therapist about for two years now. The moment when Joe figures out what the "spark" is supposed to be is, of course, the moment that Pixar makes you cry. It is so absolutely splendid.
Watch Soul. It will make you confront the big questions of human existence while still being silly and outrageous and a mind-bending visual spectacle. It is deeply personal and universal all at once, and its central message will help set you up for 2021 and beyond. And after you do watch it, please give me a call so we can chat about the "spark" and all our hopes and dreams.
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