Premise: A struggling musician dies the night of his big break and works to get his soul back in his body in time for the show.
We're 25 years into Pixar movies now. We're well past the shock and awe phase. They aren't a studio trying to reinvent the wheel anymore. They are established. They have familiar names running things and a long list of existing properties to explore. At this point, they aren't inventing a car. They are trying to make the best car possible: one with the best performance and smoothest ride. And that's fine. It's inevitable and just as exciting in its own way.
As expected, a lot of people have talked about Soul in relation to Inside Out. There are obvious similarities in how they attempt to literalize abstract aspects of the human condition. It isn't remotely surprising that Pete Docter is the lead director of both films. I don't think of it as Pixar getting lazy though. Rather, Soul is using the same tool for a different story. Because, while the two appear similar on a mechanical level, they are not about the same thing at all.
Soul is actually a tough movie to explain, because it requires a trademark Pixar exposition dump that doesn't feel like an exposition dump. In short though, Joe (Jamie Foxx) is a music teacher who dreams of being a professional Jazz musician. When he gets his big break, he dies in an accident. Other than going to the great beyond, he jumps around the afterlife until he disguises himself as a mentor for an unassigned soul. This soul, #22 (Tina Fey), has been around for a while but is still missing its spark - the thing that makes it alive. Joe and 22 eventually get to Earth with some body swap fun. Joe starts to question what his actual purpose in the world is. 22, despite her hesitation, finds out that maybe living wouldn't be so bad.
This movie hit me hard, because it explained something that I previously couldn't. While Inside Out is the movie this will be compared to, I actually thought more about Monsters University while watching it. That movie has always bothered me. While I like the message Monsters U movie was aiming for, I always thought it used the wrong tactic. The aim of that movie was to explain that you won't always meet your aspirations and that's OK. But, I thought the movie leaned too much toward telling people not to chase their dreams because they probably won't work out, which sucks as a message to kids. Soul has a very similar message but says it so much better. It hinges the difference between a purpose and a spark. Joe spent his life obsessed with the dream of being a great musician. Jazz is all he ever thought about and it never worked out. Along the way, he ignored so many of the other things that made life worth living. That's the lesson. There isn't just one way to live a good life. At different points in my life, I wanted to be a novelist, a TV writer, and a stand-up comedian. Sure, some of the reason I didn't become any of those things had to do with talent, opportunity, and commitment, but a lot of it has to do with it not being worth the other sacrifices I'd have to make to do it. Unless you break big, the life of a standup comedian sounds really awful to me. I never wanted to pack up my life to move to California for the hope of maybe making it as a writer. It isn't healthy to tie all your happiness to a single achievement. It's better to enjoy life as it is while striving to make it better. If that means working countless hours to be a great Jazz pianist while enjoying your friends and family and valuing the students who you've taught along the way, then that's fine. But that's not the only way to do it right.
That isn't to say that Soul is some new age course on better living. It's a fun movie too. It has a nice voice cast of familiar and new voices. I love when Jamie Foxx doesn't try too hard to be a movie star. I love any Tina Fey in pure comedy mode that I can get. Rachel House makes a strong impression in a fairly small role as the closest thing to a villain in the film. And this has the Pixar level of detail I love. It's full of funny throwaway lines and wordplay throughout. The recreation of New York City is lovely. It feels like a real world while not being slavish to looking photorealistic.
It's hard for me to find much to dislike about Soul. "How to live your life" movies are my biggest weakness. The very end of the movie does feel like a bit of a cop out, like they had to rewrite it at the last second. It ultimately works, but it seems like there should be a more elegant way to do it. That's about all I've got though.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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