Soul: a review
I actually watched Soul a couple of days after it was released over the Christmas holidays last year on Disney +. I intended to review it soon after – but hey, life finds a way to de-rail you somehow, doesn't it? So here I am, 5 or 6 weeks later, to tell you what I thought. And I'm glad I waited to post – it's given me some time to digest and play back the message of the film. Lucky you!
The plot
Soul centres around Joe (Jamie Foxx), a wannabe pro jazz pianist, who dreams of tinkling the ivories for an appreciative crowd, rather than teaching an out-of-tune high school band.
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High as a kite after passing an audition to play with a world class jazz saxophonist, Joe fails to see an open manhole cover – and soon finds himself in The Great Before, a kind-of holding zone for the soon to be dead.
In an effort to get back to Earth and play the gig of his life – he agrees to mentor an unborn-soul by the name of 22 (Tina Fey), to help her find her 'thing'. The big skill or interest she'll have which will help to shape her personality on Earth.
22 has done the 'training' a lot of times. She hasn't seen anything that would inspire her to take the jump and live a life on Earth, but after some body-swap comedy hi-jinx, that all changes!
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22 ends up in Joe's comatose body, while Joe ends up in the therapy cat that's been assigned to him. This helps them both to come to terms with what's really important to them.
The verdict
Soul looks beautiful – visually it's a treat and everything you expect from Pixar. But beyond that, I felt something was missing.
Pixar have packed some heavy emotional punches in the past – is there a stronger piece of narrative story-telling than the first ten minutes of Up? No, I won't wait. There's no point.
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So there's a lot to live up to, admittedly. Soul definitely reaches for the stars, but ultimately it falls short. Its attempts to be profound didn't land well for me.
Seize the day!
The film's message – that life IS the gig – live it large and stop waiting for something better to come along – is a powerful one, but it feels that thematically we're on similar ground to Up and Inside Out (to which Soul feels like a familiar cousin, in so many ways).
Also – the pseudo-existentialist waffle to set up the thrust of the film left me cold. So many movies and tv series have attempted to push their version of an afterlife on me, and it's often left me cold – this was one of them.
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I hope I haven't been too down on the film though, there's a lot to like here.
Foxx and Fey's voice work is lovely – adding real characterisation, and anything that manages to wedge in the unique stylings of Richard Ayoade (Jerry) always gets my attention.
Just don't expect it to as life-changing or as soulful as perhaps it should have been.
Thanks for reading! If you've seen Soul, come and talk to me on Twitter and let me know what you thought!