Soul

 

RATING: A

Soul is Pixar's newest and was also one of multiple unfortunate movie victims of the pandemic. Coming at a point when Disney was desperately throwing stuff at the wall trying to figure out how they could still make bank on their movies during a time like this (spoiler: they couldn't), one such result was Soul becoming a "straight-to-streaming" feature--which, much like "direct-to-video" before it, isn't usually a good thing (though perhaps not to the same extent). 

Soul also is Pete Docter's newest turn at the director chair, who has been considered one of Pixar's best. And... well, he did give us Monsters Inc and Up, both classics. Most would say the same about his most recent feature prior to this, Inside Out, though I am in the vast dissenting minority. There were more issues with that movie than most would care to admit, but part of it was limiting human emotion to five distinct ones and not much else--and the film not really reaching the heights of its ambitions. 

With all of that said, Inside Out was still very creative--considering that Docter was trying to essentially anthropomorphize abstract concepts at that point. He sticks to that formula for Soul, which takes things some steps further and asks: where do personalities come from? What "sparks" our souls? And some of that may actually sound a little similar to Inside Out (or at least the former question, anyway), and it's certainly not impossible that Docter is working with some concepts here he first came up with during the making of Inside Out. But this is a whole different beast in general. Instead of going into people's minds, we go to a whole different plane of existence where personalities and "souls" are created--or at least, the parts of their soul that make them who they are. (No explanation on where the souls come from *before* they enter this personality-creating plane of existence--also, despite dealing with things like the afterlife and souls, there's scarcely a hint of spirituality of any sort here.) 

This place is where jazz musician Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) ends up when he accidentally falls into a manhole, which seemingly kills him--and instead of going to the afterlife (here only called "The Great Beyond"), he ends up fighting his way into the "Great Before," the plane of existence where the personalities are created. Quite simply, Joe doesn't want to die yet--he's got a certain driven mentality beyond the usual. His adventure to try to reunite himself with his body leads him to cross paths with "22" (Tina Fey), a soul manifestation that, unlike most others, doesn't actually want to go to Earth. 

What follows is probably Pixar's most existentialist movie ever--not just because it asks questions about things like purpose or what makes life worth living, but because it goes to some different planes of existence--at least one of which is quite literally an abstract everyday metaphor made into a visible reality. There's even a scene where one of the caretakers of the "Great Before"--which appears to us as a 2-D presence made up of traced lines--tells Joe that it is manifesting itself in a form that "your puny human mind can understand." 

Delving into such topics and going to such places could've pretty easily turned out disastrous--in fact, it could've even come off as one of those movies where you ask what kind of drugs they were on. The result instead ranks among Pixar's most creative features ever, and arguably one of their more profound ones. Without giving too much away, the "moral takeaways" of this film are not too dissimilar to the likes of Cars or Monsters University. 

While perhaps there are certain things about this movie that are a little oversimplified, the movie does such a good job with the marks they're going for that it can be overlooked. Even if there's a thing or two I wished they'd touched on more or given a little more closure, the film ultimately reaches a satisfying conclusion all its own. 

There's plenty of other good qualities here. The film is quite hilarious, with some borderline meta humor at times or poking fun at real life figures or stereotypes (example: why the New York Knicks actually suck). The voice acting is also strong--Jamie Foxx is quite excellent here as he brings both the emotion and comic relief when needed. Also of note is the soundtrack, composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, of all people--their more ethereal, very slightly techno-ish feel at times is often the completely correct vibe for the scenes in the different dimensions/planes of existence. (Jazz fans will probably be pleased as well, I assume--though jazz is not really my thing, so I'm not very qualified to say.) 

There are some things about this movie that are admittedly hard to explain without seeing the movie itself (or at least a trailer). Suffice it to say that it may just be best to take this reviewer's word for it--as well as all the other critics and fans who have showered praise upon this movie--and give it a go. Also suffice to say that while this obviously isn't the movie's fault, it deserved better than being "straight to streaming." This may not be saying much since most movies were postponed last year, but it's hard for me to see much else topping this for being the best film of 2020.