SOUL AND HEART
Joyously creative and emotional, Pete Docter's latest gets metaphysical
Some movies exceed expectations. Pixar, at its best, skips better-than-you-hoped and goes straight to better-than-youcould-have-imagined.
Such is the case with the studio's newest, Soul. There are times when watching this animated masterpiece feels like being gently indoctrinated into a new religion, one whose creed radiates tranquillity, warmth and joy.
There's a lot of metaphysical instruction necessary here, not unlike the studio's 2015 hit Inside Out, which was also the last time I gave one of its creations five stars.
But let's start simply: Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) is a middle-school music teacher doing what he loves — sort of. He's long dreamt of being a great jazz musician, but teaching pays the bills. The job is not without its spiritual rewards, however: Sometimes he finds himself teaching a child whose passion matches his own.
He gets a break when a former student invites him to try out at the Half Note Club — a real New York City jazz hangout, though in our reality it closed in 1975.
His audition at the piano is the first of many sublime moments in the movie: Watch as everything — light and sound and even physical surroundings — melts away, leaving him in a space of pure melodic bliss. It's a visual representation of how music can transport us. And Soul is just getting started.
Unfortunately, Joe is just getting ended. As the trailers show, a jubilant Joe leaves the club still unaware of his surroundings. He narrowly misses being struck by falling bricks, nimbly and unconsciously navigates a bunch of banana peels and a pile of tacks — and then plummets into an open manhole.
A wrong turn on the way to heaven lands him in the Great Before, a kind of pre-existence way-station where souls are imbued with personality and spark before being sent into the world. Mistaken for a mentor, he is paired with a reluctant soul named 22, who has so far refused all training and would prefer to remain disembodied for eternity.
How recalcitrant is Soul 22? Recall that there are at least 7.5 billion souls in existence, and far more if you assume they don't get recycled. If they're numbered
sequentially, 22 has been there a long time. She's an old soul.
Tina Fey provides her voice, pitching her usual delivery a little deeper and also somehow younger. It took me a while to figure out who it was, which I suppose is a good thing. Twenty-two is initially reluctant to engage with Joe (remember, she's been instructed by some of the greats, from Aristotle to Mother Teresa) but when a mishap sends both of them back to Earth — well, let's just say there's nothing quite like a field trip to awaken a love of learning.
And maybe let's leave it at that, more or less. Trailers for Soul have been coy about just what goes on when Joe and 22 make it back to the physical realm. Are there life lessons? Moments of pure beauty? Scenes to make
your laugh, while others will have you fighting back tears? To which I also ask: Have you seen the work of director Pete Docter, whose credits include Inside Out and Up?
Docter is joined on this one by co-writer and co-director Kemp Powers (One Night in Miami) and by a stellar voice cast that includes Angela Bassett, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Richard Ayoade and Alice Braga — though not, as near as I can tell, Pixar good-luck charm John Ratzenberger, who has been in every one of the studio's previous features, at least in cameo form. Maybe I blinked and missed him. Maybe there was something in my eye. Maybe it was a tear of joy. I'm not saying.