OVP: Soul (2020)

Film: Soul (2020)

Stars: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Phylicia Rashad, Angela Bassett

Director: Pete Docter

Oscar History: 3 nominations/2 wins (Best Animated Feature Film*, Sound, Score*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Pixar has had an ebb-and-flow when it comes to making films for children versus for their parents.  Even from its feature-film beginnings with Toy Story, that film might have had flashy cowboys & astronauts for children, but the parents in the room understood that this was about getting older, and could look at their little Andy's & understand that they only got to be in this stage for so long.  Occasionally they went totally for kids (the Cars franchise), and in some cases it feels like it leaned more heavily onto the adults with only a few hints for the kids (Up had the dog & the boy scout child, but otherwise was about two old men battling it out as they aged).  Soul, though, takes Pixar to a new direction-while the colors are playful & occasionally the baby souls might feel like a way for children to latch on, this is a film entirely for grownups; this is the first Pixar, and perhaps first Disney animated, film where children are the afterthought.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Joe (Foxx), a middle school music teacher whose passion is not in education but in the gigs he plays at jazz venues & nightclubs, where he is an excellent pianist but never got his big break.  When he finally does get a chance to jam with legendary musician Dorothea Williams (Bassett), he's so excited he doesn't realize there's a manhole in front of him, and he, well, falls through and dies.  This brings him to the "Great Beyond," essentially his afterlife, but Joe isn't ready to die, and attempts to escape from this place, but does so with 22 (Fey), a soul that has refused to leave the Great Beyond and start an actual life on Earth.  When the two go to Earth, they switch bodies, and slowly 22 learns about life (realizing it's worth living), and Joe understands that aspects of his life have been ignored & even run selfishly (he has had more impact than he knew).  This results in 22 getting the same "imprint" of hobbies as Joe, even though she's different, and so Joe (after jamming with Dorothea & realizing it wasn't as grand as he expected it), goes back to save her, and give her a chance at a true, unique life on earth.  In doing so, he is given a reprieve to return to his life from the Great Beyond, and he does, but with a renewed perspective to live life to its fullest.

Soul tries to do a lot, and that doesn't always work even in strong movies.  The third act is convoluted-the mythology of the Great Beyond is a bit too convoluted for a movie that's only 100 minutes long, and it does feel like we could've trimmed a bit of the body-swapping aspects as it wears out its welcome pretty quickly.  The film also borrows too much from previous Pixar messages, specifically Inside Out, and so it doesn't feel as special as it might've ten years ago.

That said, Soul is occasionally really wonderful.  The color scheme (so much purple and white) is a treasure (Pixar continues to just reach for the stars aesthetically), and the score is a dream.  It also has the gaul to not just make a film for adults, but a complicated one.  The conversations about not letting your dreams control your destiny is one that we all have to do.  Most of us don't get to have the job we had when we're ten, and we work in day jobs that pay the bills, but aren't what inspires us.  Soul challenges its viewers to ignore the voice in our head that says that we "failed" as a result, and instead to appreciate the dreams & the gifts that we have made for ourselves, and not let us be defined just by our careers in a world where that's what most of us feel defined by.  It's a good message, and an important one after a year of many of us losing our jobs (or more) or having an undue amount of stress that has us appreciating life more.  The film ends on a note of ambiguity but of realness.  Joe has hopes that he will take this experience and not fall back into the same rut, into the same shell of underwhelmed expectations-it's the hope we all carry as we move forward past trauma & close calls (like our collective 2020).  That Pixar is brave enough to admit that this is harder than it seems, and that it doesn't show the next chapter of his life is smart, and yet another sign that this movie is made for the adult-who-still-dreams.