Look, we need to talk. I feel like I’m always harping on about this, when it mightn’t even be such an issue to some, but I’ve had some soul-searching to do – no pun intended. It’s always been my way that movies that come out on Christmas Day or beyond (that last week of the year) are fair game in the new year because they are still in cinemas, and I don’t always have time to see them any earlier. I consider the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, a grey area, but this is the first year I feel bad about my personal preference on the matter; COVID-19 and streaming services have thrown a spanner in the works. Wonder Woman 1984 was always, clearly intended to be a 2020 release, but got pushed back again and again due to the virus, and just squeezed in. Soul is a Christmas Day release, but since it has been released on streaming, it will always be cemented as a movie of 2020 – if not for COVID, you’d expect Pixar would have dropped it in cinemas. I don’t know if I’m happy including these two movies in my tally for 2021 or not; right now, I am, but it feels wrong. At least, being that it’s January, I have a whole year to think it through, and stick to a decision. And at the end of the day, if you are a person who read through this and thought ‘WHO. FUCKING. CARES!’, bless your heart.
Alright Pixar, I’ve got my tissues and comfort food at the ready, for what I can only assume will be another animation designed to hit me where I hurt. My first thought about Soul, through only hearing about its existence, is that it seems very similar in concept to Inside Out, and I wonder if Soul is going to be different enough to stand on its own, or act as a quasi-sequel to the successful adventure on human emotions. Musician Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) finally gets his big break; an opportunity to perform alongside revered jazz singer Dorathea Williams (voiced by Angela Bassett). But, on his way home, he dies. Now as a soul, Joe finds himself on an escalator towards the ‘Great Beyond’, but, unwilling to pass on without first fulfilling his purpose as a musician, Joe falls to the ‘Great Before’, where souls are first born before traveling to Earth. Joe partners up with a rambunctious early soul yet to experience life, and with no desire to ever leave the immortal realm; 22 (voiced by Tina Fey). Yet the two souls devise a plan together, and quest to return Joe back to his body.
First of all, kudos on the character design of Joe; skinny in the shoulders and pudgy around the middle; finally, someone who looks like me! Representation is important! He actually looks like a cross-between both of Eddie Murphy’s main characters from The Nutty Professor.
Soul is a very high concept movie. Pixar is constantly praised for providing movies that are universally relatable, where parents and children can connect to their cartoons alike; I think Soul skewers more towards being primarily for adults than children, for maybe the first time, with its closest relation in the Pixar pantheon perhaps being, WALL-E for tone. Storywise, Soul is clearly the love-child of Inside Out and Coco, as the latter also involves a stranded musician in the afterlife. Some of the simplistic design elements of Soul are unique to the modern day, especially of the characters named Jerry, reminding me of early MGM Cartoons or Merrie Melodies works, that I believe dealt with similar thoughts on life – there’s the cartoon The Dot and the Line, but there’s also another deep-thinking cartoon from back in the day that I remember seeing as a kid, but I can’t find what it’s called today. But ultimately, for how concise Pixar productions usually are, I found Soul very shallow. The message of the movie is to live your life, and there’s literally a T.I. and Rihanna song that covered that over a decade ago. Unlike Inside Out, that ends on a revelation of balance between joy and sadness, I don’t see how Soul suggests any revelatory philosophical ideas as to how a person should live their lives. And look, I get that it comes down to personal preference and believe systems absolutely anyway, but considering Joe has his own specific personal challenges in the movie, particularly towards the end, I think the movie needed to bring its own resolutions to the problems at hand, to give Joe and the audience a bigger, more stable share in a satisfying ending.
More specifically, at times it feels like the movie wants to suggest a balance between practicality and following your dreams, by the way Joe’s mother says that someone needs to pay the bills and how Joe plays the night of his life and isn’t left completely satisfied, but it’s like the movie is too afraid to pull the trigger. I was waiting for 22’s spark to lead to something wonderful, but did I miss that we never really find out what it is that completed the badge? Is it ‘jazzing’? Is that simply a zest for life? Well, that’s sweet, I guess. In the end, Joe runs through their experiences together, with pizza and that falling seed pod, and I guess realises, that it’s in those small moments that life it truly worth living… What do you do with the rest of your time? That’s where Joe’s extraneous quest for purpose really lies.
Pixar again, is pairing up two unlikely entities to become friends; but by my assumption, 22 could be among the weakest main characters the studio has ever had. Admittedly, with Joe’s situation so pressing, 22 doesn’t get a lot of time to be the focus, but through a combination of an annoying attitude and generic goofy teeth… ’they’ aren’t that attractive. Dory made it work (Finding Nemo). The story for Soul skips around, with a portion of the movie including a body-swap scenario, in which my first thought was, are we really doing this? In the end, it’s not as bad as it could be. I think Soul is half-baked in execution, lacking originality in a vague but brilliant spectacle about the supposed nature of a human soul – even Terry, the bean-counting Soul Collector voiced by Rachel House, is just Rachel House’s funny presence from Hunt for the Wilderpeople again, and as I said in my Happiest Season review, I don’t want to be reminded of a better example from a different movie when I’m trying to lose myself in the movie in front of me. Anyway, there’s a case to be made that I’m being a negative-nelly, in regards to a movie that’s designed to be uplifting. You could say I’m missing the point, that is, to just be, and it doesn’t matter to the soul what Joe achieves on Earth, but honestly for me, Onward has a better revelatory message in its completion than Soul.
I like this movie, and I wouldn’t begrudge anybody loving this movie, but I wonder, beyond the concept, what is there to be gained and taken away? For anyone who thinks Soul is the bee’s knees, I’d curiously love to know, what it is about Soul that’s the most inspiring factor for you? I really wanted to love this movie, if only just to end on a Billy-Joel related joke that I thought up – I wanted to say, ‘like Billy Joel, I’m all about Soul’, but sadly, that opportunity has been taken away from me – that’s what I get for coming up with such cleverness ahead of time; the curses of being so so talented 😏 Maybe next time my plans will align. And for all the hullaballoo I created, about where Wonder Woman 1984 and Soul should fit in my personal catalogue, I doubt it’ll matter again due to the ratings I’m giving them.
3.5
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