“Soul” is the Movie You Didn’t Know You Needed
By: Gabrielle Ulubay
Tags: Movies, Disney, Soul, Pixar, Movie Review

If you have a Disney Plus subscription, do yourself a huge favor and watch Soul. This new Pixar movie puts an original spin on Disney’s familiar follow-your-dreams theme by giving it a metaphysical twist and some real-world grounding.

In Soul, jazz musician cum middle school band teacher, Joe (Jamie Foxx), books the gig of his dreams when he suddenly dies on the walk home. He is then transported to “the great beyond” — a literal stairway to heaven (hi, Led Zeppelin fans). But Joe immediately defies his fate, racing down the stairwell and flinging himself off the bottom of it until he finds himself in “the great before,” which, we learn, is where souls develop their own personalities.

One of the first things that struck me is how well Pixar imagines existence beyond physical life. In 2017, Pixar animators impressed film critics across the world with their depiction of the afterlife in Coco by honoring traditional Mexican folk art while also bringing The Land of the Dead to life in an engaging, accessible way.

Soul does something similar, but unlike Coco’s Land of the Dead, Soul’s great beyond and great before are minimalistic. Each aspect of this universe is distilled to the most basic foundations of its essence. Even the keepers of these lands, who are all named Terry and Jerry, are simple line drawings, and the new souls’ characteristics are simplified into tiny drawings that they wear on their chests. In this way, Soul is also similar to Inside Out (2015), another Pixar movie that tackles complex ideas about behavior and personality in a simple way that speaks to both adults and children.

On that note, Soul skillfully depicts anxiety, obsession, and psychological absorption when 22 (Tina Fey) takes Joe to “the zone.” There, we learn that people who are “in the zone” or who are “lost souls” can be found here. Lost souls are essentially people who are so wrapped up in something that is disconnecting them from life, and the first lost soul we meet is a hedge fund manager who a team of astral-projecting mystics (led by a hippie named Moonwind, voiced by Graham Norton) saves from his monotonous, soul-draining immersion in his work.

The zone, referred to as a “space between the physical and the spiritual,” is the most interesting part about the movie. By addressing the spiritual quality of being absorbed in one’s work, it highlights the magic of humanity, but it also warns us of how obsession can transform our souls into something ugly, terrifying, and out of control. Moonwind even makes a joke about how Tetris once disconnected him from reality to the point that he ended up a lost soul — a nod to our tendency to get lost in our phones.

In these ways, Soul is a film with the run-of-the-mill warning to appreciate life, live in the moment, etc. But this film is more effective than others at delivering this message because this moral is grounded in and nuanced by reality: Joe’s mother, Libba (Phylicia Rashad), is openly skeptical and even discouraging about Joe’s dreams of becoming a professional musician, but she is by no means an antagonist. Instead, we understand from the very beginning that she has Joe’s best interests at heart, citing her desire for Joe to have a stable job that pays the bills and that comes with a pension and health benefits. This immediately rings true to adults — particularly those who have found their dreams sidelined by the need to pay bills. We not only recognize but empathize with Libba’s concerns, and this quality allows her counterpoint to strengthen the moral of the film. If fiscal responsibilities were never brought up, the film’s chase-your-dreams message would fall on deaf adult ears.

Another quality that distinguishes this film from others is that it strikes a balance between the follow-your-dreams and enjoy-the-little-things morals. When Joe finally gets his dream job, he comments that he doesn’t feel any different than he did beforehand. Then, he goes home and thinks of all the little things — like time with his parents, tasting good food, and watching the sun rise — that have made his life worthwhile. The lesson here is not that dreams pale in comparison to daily life (I’m looking at you, It’s a Wonderful Life) or that dreams should be pursued above all else. Instead, Pixar uses Soul to tell us that while dreams are important and certainly worthy of pursuit, they are but an iota of what life is about.

Now, we get the point of this movie long before the climax. As soon as Joe told 22 that all the things she loved about life were “just regular old living,” I understood. Usually this understanding is supposed to come with a film’s climax or resolution, but I didn’t mind that the moral of story came early here. The first reason is obviously that this is a story, and a story needs a climax, but the more important reason is that the climax teaches us one more thing about our souls.

When 22 becomes a lost soul, Joe discovers that the obsession disconnecting her from life is not one single thing, but is rather the negative feedback she has been getting all this time. All the mentors who told her she was destined for failure echo through her soul along with the words of Joe himself, who invalidated her discovery of her spark for life. Yes, we need this climax because this is a cartoon and it requires a straightforward conversation about the moral so that children can understand, but the writers also demonstrated here how damaging negative feedback and self-talk can be to the soul, and how doubt about one’s worthiness can transform anyone — even someone as headstrong as 22 — into a lost soul.

And I don’t know about you all, but that’s something I needed to hear.

So go watch this movie. It’s genuinely funny, with jokes ranging from dark humor (in the great before, 22 says, “You can’t crush a soul here. That’s what life on earth is for.”) to jokes about how bad the Knicks are. It’s also beautifully animated, with artistic nods to minimalist line art, the color aesthetics of jazz (lots of blues and purples in the great beyond), and the poetic clutter of New York City.

And, again, the overall message is a valuable one that I think everyone needs to be reminded of — particularly during this pandemic, when it often feels like we’re cut off from so much of what we love about life. Soul taps us on the shoulder and wipes the sleep from our eyes so we can see that what we really love about life isn’t just traveling, working, or partying. It’s life itself.