Movie Review: 'Soul' Another Triumph for Disney/Pixar

Disney and Pixar have done it again. The brilliant team at Pixar have created yet another masterwork. Soul is the kind of thoughtful, deeply felt and warm work of art that Pixar has become known for. The formula is perhaps, overly familiar, sticking to mainly two quibbling characters in a relatively predictable series of events, but nevertheless, Soul has the best qualities of a Pixar movie well in place.

Soul features the voice of Jamie Foxx as Joe Gardner, a Jazz obsessed musician struggling to find his breakthrough gig. For now, Joe gets by as a middle school music teacher and has been offered the chance to go full time in the job. Joe’s mother, Libba (Phylicia Rashad), is in favor of the school job which will offer Joe the security that Joe’s father never found as a gigging musician himself. Joe is conflicted.

Joe’s conflict is exacerbated when he’s offered the chance to perform with a New York City Jazz legend and potentially become part of her touring four piece band. It’s Joe’s dream gig and he’s going to take advantage of it until his reverie causes him to step into an open manhole and die. Yes, Joe’s dead, he’s fallen and we see his soul arrive in a void in space headed toward the great beyond on a moving sidewalk.

Unwilling to give up on his dream gig, Joe runs away from the eternal resting place and manages to find an escape. Falling through the void, Joe winds up in the before life, a place where souls are created and assigned traits. Here, Joe is mistaken for a mentor soul, a recently passed on individual who offers guidance to a soul preparing to be sent to Earth. Joe’s mentee is 22 (Tina Fey), a young soul who has refused to go to Earth for some time now.

22 and Joe happen to be in a position to help each other. 22 wants to stay in the Before-life and Joe wants to go to Earth. If Joe can help 22 earn her passage to Earth she can sneakily give it to him so he can locate his body and get back inside. For this to work though, they will need the help of a hippy capable of transcending life and death through meditation and the journey is not without peril, especially when 22 accidentally ends up in Joe’s body.

Much like the equally brilliant Inside Out, Soul is a deep dive into big subjects about what makes you, you. What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to really live? These are relatively general questions but they are explored with the kind of love and care that we’ve come to expect from the best of Pixar’s movies. The sensitivity mixes with smarts and a warm sense of humor to give Soul its own feel, separate from other Pixar movies.

Soul is a family comedy but it is not a movie that relies on big laughs. It’s not a movie that produces big laughs or has aims to create big laughs. Instead, the humor of Soul is quieter and more gentle. The laughs are there but the movie is really going for smiles and heartwarming moments rather than knee-slapping laughs. It’s the right approach for some of the weighty issues of life and death that are examined by the characters of Soul.

Soul carries forward the typical dynamic of a Pixar movie, bringing together opposing personalities, giving them a common goal and allowing them to bicker and bond and work their way toward a lesson that each needs to learn. It’s a tried and true formula and it works once again in Soul. Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey are not the most likely duo but their dynamic is friendly, playful and fun while they explore big ideas about life, death and purpose.

The look of Soul is also classically Pixar, gorgeous computer animation that lands just next to the good side of the uncanny valley. The character designs are broad while the settings have photo realism reminiscent of a really great painting. I especially loved the look of Joe’s tiny apartment which looks incredibly lifelike while not approaching the ugly quality of being 'too real.' The New York City streets are dressed in fall colors and leaves blowing in the wind are a gorgeous and yet wonderfully simple looking piece of animation.

Soul doesn’t reinvent the wheel in terms of Pixar’s typical style of storytelling but it doesn’t have that kind of ambition. Director Pete Docter wanted to explore themes of life and death and purpose and he does so via a smart, thoughtful and empathetic script and two wonderful characters. There isn’t much in the way of suspense as to how this story will play out but I didn’t mind because I enjoyed these characters and this unique conversation about life that makes up the story of Soul.

I would be remiss if I didn’t heap praise on the soundtrack of Soul. Joe’s love of Jazz is met by the remarkable work of composers Trent Reznor and partner Atticus Ross. Combining Joe’s love of Jazz with the Reznor/Ross brand of experimental music fuses brilliantly. It’s a gorgeous score highlighted by the Jazz riffs that pop up throughout. It’s possibly my favorite score of 2020 thus far.

Soul arrives on Disney Plus on Christmas Day.