Don’t worry, they’re fine. You can’t crush a soul here. That’s what life on earth is for.
Pixar’s Soul focuses on Joe, an African American band teacher who has big dreams of becoming a big time jazz pianist. All of those dreams seem to be poised to come true when Joe is killed in a tragic (and strangely slapstick) accident. Now, with the help of the snarky Soul 22, Joe’s got to find a way to escape the realm of the souls and get back to his “real” life.
This movie is exceptionally good; it ranks right toward the top of the middle tier of Pixar films in my opinion. It’s not quite top tier, but it’s darn close. It’s a visually stunning film, both in the way it depicts the metaphysical elements of the story and also in the way it works toward visualizing the jazz music that is at the film’s heart. The score is really stupendous, featuring work from Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste. Reznor & Ross handle a lot of the underscoring while Batiste is responsible for the jazzier cuts, including the diegetic music. Reznor and Ross really do just keep getting better as they broaden their palette. I loved their retro and very atypical score for Mank and this one is even better. They work a lot with the piano, just like Batiste does, but in a more ethereal and spiritual tone and their work is key to the film working as well as it does. One of the most deeply moving moments of the movie is a quiet piano solo that Joe improvises late in the film, taking inspiration from the mundane aspects of life that he always tended to overlook, and the music absolutely lives up to the moment and is the reason the scene works. Likewise, Batiste’s jazz is really hot and often high energy and the film is genuinely one of the best movies about jazz I’ve ever seen.
The cast is also very good, for the most part. Jamie Foxx is restrained and empathetic as Joe, bringing a lot of genuine emotion to his performance. And I have to mention Rachel House, an actress I first encountered in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople; she absolutely slays her role here as a metaphysical soul-hunter trying to track down Joe’s wayward soul. It’s honestly not that different from the role she had in Wilderpeople, so I kind of suspect she got this part based on someone at Pixar seeing that movie and, if so, good for them. I’m a bit less sold on Tina Fey’s performance as Soul 22; there’s not a whole lot that’s surprising about that character or that performance. She’s fine, but she fails to really bring the character to life in the way I wish she had.
I have to say that the film has a couple of flaws in terms of its messaging, I think. It wants to be a little too profound, I think, and so it tries to kind of dig into this idea of everyone having a “spark” at the end in a way that I didn’t find that compelling and was actually a little confusing. Something about how a spark isn’t your “passion,” it’s your “reason for living” but it doesn’t quite nail that shift. Still, the script is very nuanced in its discussion of dreams and passions and the ultimate message is that attaining your dreams really isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be, that achieving your dreams may not be a transcendent experience that transforms your life into a wonderland. It isn’t anti-dreams or anti-achieving-your-dreams, but it has a pragmatic notion of the way life works and often doesn’t work when we focus too hard on our fantasies. I respect the film for shooting for a very nuanced and adult take on the subject matter; if Soul fails to ultimately pay off in the tremendously effective way that I find a lot of Pixar films to pay off, well, it’s still trying to talk about complicated things in a serious way while also being really funny and focused on music, so high degree of difficulty on this one. Still, like I say, this one didn’t knock me out emotionally in the way that a lot of Pixar films do, but it’s still a really good, really thoughtful film with only a few minor stumbles along the way. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – Soul probably ranks at the top of the middle tier of Pixar films, but that’s not a slam; amazing music, a thoughtful script and a great central performance make this one a keeper. 3 ½ stars.