Once upon a time, you were guaranteed flawlessness from a Pixar production, aside from the odd “Cars” flick here and there. The studio has, however, become something of a sequel mill over the past decade, boasting only a few masterworks since the halcyon days of “Ratatouille,” “WALL-E” and “Up”; the five years since they released what was arguably their greatest work, “Inside Out,” stands out as something of a creative no man’s land. “Soul,” you’ll be glad to know, is a mesmerizing return to form; it’s a veritable smorgasbord for the senses, vividly recapturing the joys hidden in life’s most banal moments, just as excited about a grease-soaked slice of pizza as it is a leaf floating in the autumn breeze. My oh my, what a nourishing tonic for the current moment.
READ MORE: 2020 Fall Film Preview: 40 Most Anticipated Films To Watch
Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) is a middle-aged music teacher with a penchant for black turtlenecks and cheap undies; we’re introduced to him as he leads a band recital with his less-than-talented kids, the scene a sort of antithetical “Whiplash.” He’s a fine educator, mesmerizing the class with his jazzy piano tricks, but it’s certainly not his “spark” – he’s a soul man at heart. Horror, then, when he’s handed a letter by the school principal with the promise of full-time employment for the first time, well, ever; for Joe, who spends his time outside of class trying to secure gigs at jazz clubs, this is more akin to a life sentence. Alas, in an increasingly precarious economy and with no promise of frequent work in sight, it looks to be his only option left.
READ MORE: The Best Films Of 2020… So Far
A phone call from an ex-student, who had their own musical fire lit by Joe as a middle schooler, changes everything; after a bandmate has been forced to drop out, Joe lands a spot on stage at the world-famous Half Note jazz club, a soulful little underground joint lit by tea lights and neon and awash with smoke, jamming alongside the glamorously austere Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett). It looks as though, after years of sore fingertips and door-slamming rejections, Joe’s finally made it; it’d be a shame, then, if he fell down an open manhole to his apparent death.
READ MORE: Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Moves To Disney+ On Christmas Day
Of course, this is precisely what happens and, as if squeezed out of the condiment bottle that is his real-world body, Joe’s soul – a cute little ectoplasm-esque thing, complete with his signature trilby and stache – awakens on the conveyor belt to The Great Beyond, a gigantic, amorphous light ball that zaps up souls like mosquitos. Some mishap sees him tumble off and fall into The Great Before, a spot located somewhere outside the space-time continuum where personalities are cultivated before being quite literally dropped to earth, pollinating the brains of newborns. And so, helped by the disgruntled unborn soul 22 (Tina Fey), begins Joe’s determined course back to his body, back to the dimly lit Half Note, to his great Elysium on stage.
This is certainly one of Pixar’s more mature works; there’s plenty for younger audiences, with some funny, cat-involved body-swapping and its plush, welcoming aesthetic, but “Soul,” with its ruminations on what it means to have purpose in a world driven by capital, or to lead a life one can be proud of as one approaches The Great Beyond, will resonate with most-all grownups. It not only explores what it means to be “alive” in the most literal sense, to experience the day-to-day minutiae that we so often take for granted, but how we define purpose, the chugging engine behind our desires; in short, why we get out of bed in the morning, hop on the decrepit subway, rub shoulders with equally dissatisfied strangers, and just keep going – all in the pursuit of some higher calling.
It’s a ravishing ode, too, to gestures, touches, smiles, and pithy, pointless conversations; in “Soul” the tiny human interactions that we so often brush overcome under the magnifying glass. Small talk is gigantic and as vital for our bodies as blood, sinew, and bones; this is, ultimately, from where the soul derives, the little moments that remind us we’re alive. Pixar has always had a real aptitude for montages that leave you feeling as though you’ve been wrung out and tossed into the kitchen sink, the most obvious example being that flashback sequence in “Up”; “Soul” perhaps includes the tear-jerking-iest of the lot of them in the form of a terse montage recalling Joe’s most vivid memories, from the first time he visited a jazz club to the death of his father. Bring tissues. (As if you hadn’t already prepared.)
The film’s soundscape, provided by the supreme duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, is a sublime detour from the studio’s usual traditional fare; it’s far more akin to Daniel Lopatin’s phenomenal work on “Uncut Gems” than the saccharine tones of Randy Newman, the deep, galactic world of The Great Before soundtracked by symphonic bleeps and bloops. And “Soul’s” New York is a world of jazz and improv, recalling Antonio Sanchez’s work on “Birdman” and Nicholas Britell’s luscious brass melodies in “If Beale Street Could Talk”; it creates a wonderful duality, differentiating between the two worlds whilst amplifying “Soul’s” romantic vision of the metropolis.
“Soul” is as much an ode to New York as “Ratatouille” is to Paris; the studio’s animation has naturally improved as time goes by and technology develops, and the city’s great architecture, captured through the warm film of an autumnal haze, has seldom looked better. It even manages to romanticize the subway, somehow, in Pixar’s typical tongue-in-cheek manner; the human experience is celebrated in total here, golden moments scraped up from the most banal nooks and crannies.
This is exactly what we needed in the current moment: A reminder of the joys of life’s minutiae, of warm cuddles with our moms, and the rush of lofty conversations with friends. The ruthless pace of the world, nor the clouds that hang over us, nor the mortar fire bombardment of self-deprecation from which we’re so often besieged can erase these moments entirely; all it takes is sitting down to something like “Soul” for it all to come rushing back, for a smile to creep upon our faces, and for our souls to be at rest. [A]
“Soul” is set to arrive on Disney+ on December 25.
