Soul (2020, Dir. Pete Docter):
While most mainstream movies clutter themselves up with high-concept ideas and barely legible plotting (see the recent Wonder Woman 1984 as a prime example), Pixar remains steadfast to the virtues of old-fashioned, straightforward storytelling. Not that their movies lack ambition — at their best, they marry out-there concepts (balloons carrying a house to South America in Up, a lonely child’s subconscious presented as anthropomorphized emotions bouncing around a discombobulated control room in Inside Out) with witty, often moving commentary on human foibles and fears, underscored by impeccable animation. Director Pete Docter, the man responsible for Up and Inside Out, is back at it in Soul, using a cute conceit to get at downright metaphysical concerns.
Soul‘s protagonist, as is par for the course, is a thwarted dreamer: Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a genial high school music teacher who never quite made it as a jazz pianist. Handed a rare opportunity to hit the big time when a former student invites him to gig with a star saxophonist (Angela Bassett), Joe is in seventh heaven — and then he finds himself on a literal stairway to heaven (aka “The Great Beyond”) when he falls through an open manhole, and gets soul separated from body. In no mood to leave his life behind just when it was getting started, Joe tears himself away, and tumbles into a strange netherworld called The Great Before, site of the You Seminary, where all pre-born souls are assigned personalities, find the “spark” that will determine their interests in life, and learn who they will be as humans. (“I’m a manipulative megalomaniac who’s intensely opportunistic,” one soul giddily proclaims.) On the run from The Great Beyond’s guardians and still seeking passage back to Earth, Joe volunteers to become a mentor for Soul #22 (Tina Fey), a recalcitrant sort who doesn’t want to have anything to do with joining the land of the living. “I’m comfortable up here,” she insists. “I have my routine, I float in mist, I do my sudoku puzzles.” Joe has his work cut out for him, especially when it’s revealed that the souls of Gandhi, Lincoln and Mother Teresa have all failed to win 22 over.
As that little synopsis suggests, Soul tackles some heavy ideas, including self-determination, the meaning of life, and whether it’s actually worth living. Certainly 22 believes that the pain of existence isn’t worth it: “You can’t crush a soul here,” she says. “That’s what life on Earth is for.” Whether these esoteric concepts will register with younger audience members is another matter, especially when the filmmakers throw in highfalutin jokes that will likely soar over kids’ heads. At one point, the soul of Carl Jung rages at 22, “Stop talking! My unconscious mind hates you!” Later, 22 (temporarily inhabiting the body of a human) settles down in that most philosophical of locations, a Black barber shop, and explains to its denizens: “I was existing as a theoretical construct in a hypothetical way station between life and death.” At least the kiddies can amuse themselves with the character designs: think Casper the friendly ghost coated with Muppet fur, bathed in the phosphorescent rays of an old cathode ray tube.
Soul‘s take on the afterlife (and before-life) is somewhat clunky in its realization; it’s also not as accessible or rigorously thought out as, say, Inside Out‘s representation of the human subconscious. But as a jazzy, improvisational riff, it provides a decent amount of laid-back fun, as long as you don’t think too hard about what it’s trying to represent. At times, Docter’s footloose approach pays dividends, such as when Joe and 22 visit the “zone,” where the souls of artists and geniuses are transported on flights of fancy, or weighed down by their anxieties and depression. (This also leads to the movie’s best joke, which explains a lot of recent New York Knicks history.) Graham Norton puts in an amusing appearance as Moonwind, a half-bonkers hippie zonked out on Bob Dylan tunes who cruises the zone on a vessel festooned with tie-dye sails and a peace symbol-shaped anchor. “For a time, I was a lost soul myself,” he explains. “Tetris.” On a more sincere note, Joe finds himself in the zone when he gets carried away with a piano solo, and the simple pleasure of the moment resonates.
Halfway through the picture, Docter gives up trying to explain those theoretical constructs and switches gears to Freaky Friday-style body switcheroos. If the spectacle of Joe and a stolen cat engaging in bickering slapstick seems a bit old-fashioned compared to the transcendental musings that inform the rest of the narrative, it also leads to easier, more comfortable laughs, with the elastic animation capturing a bit of the deadpan comedy you’d find in a Nick Park film. Also lovely is a passage in autumnal New York that bristles with details: the sight of bustling, crowded streets certainly hits home a little differently during these times of COVID crisis, and the little touches, from pepperoni pizza stains on a hospital gown to the flutter of a helicopter seed as it settles down into Joe’s hand, are exquisite.
Soul wants to be a two-hander, with both Joe and 22 coming to important realizations about life, the universe and everything, but despite Fey’s yeoman work, 22 is ultimately (and fittingly) just a construct that compels Joe to reckon with his past disappointments and future hopes. While Docter thankfully treats Joe and his African-American cultural milieu with respect, the movie arrives at a conclusion that’s less profound than saccharine-sweet: Enjoy the little moments, and smell the roses. No one can argue against a paean to the joys of everyday living, and the sequence in which Joe undergoes his own epiphany is well-executed. Still, for a movie that flirts with some Very Big Ideas, it’s a bit disappointing that Soul ends on the same comfortably familiar note you can find in almost any other Disney product. As if aware that he’s on a lushly stylized road to nowhere, Docter rushes the finale, which doesn’t climax so much as arrive at a abrupt finish. (Not surprisingly, the original script called for a more bittersweet, heartfelt ending.)
Just as Joe is caught between life and death, Soul is caught between two competing objectives: the desire to stretch animated and philosophical boundaries, and its need to fulfill the requirements of a heart-warming family movie. Although it ends up splitting the difference in a less than fully satisfying way, it’s still a worthy example of Pixar’s ongoing mission to create playful works of entertainment that also endeavor to engage with the mind. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that there’s nothing on heaven or Earth like a good New York-style pepperoni pizza, even in animated form. ■
