Becoming The Muse

Easy Sunday watching is some palate-cleansing soul food in the form of Soul.

Soul

Soul is a 2020 animated film from Pixar Animated Studio, directed by  Pete Docter and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Soul premiered at the London Film Festival on October 11 2020 and the theatrical release was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Soul was consequently released direct to streaming Christmas of 2020. Soul received 3 nominations in the 93 Academy Awards.

The story follows the life of Joe Gardener (voiced by Jamie Foxx) a middle school music teacher who moonlights as a jazz musician who suddenly finds himself adrift in the space between life and the great beyond. Soul is a story of purpose, time and making each moment count.

The Good

Visually, the movie has a trippy animation with a vibrant colour palatte. It might be an animated production but the characters really have soul, hahaha pun intended. Concepts of the great beyond are incomprehensible and unknowable and I love the way they made this representation and as Jerry puts it:

"I am the coming together of all quantized fields of the universe. Appearing in a form your feeble human brain can comprehend." Jerry

Jerry’s voice sounded super familiar and I was delighted when the synapses in my brain finally made the connection, I remembered the voice as that of Maurice Moss (Richard Ayoade) in The IT Crowd…  Allow me a moment to gig out. I loved the IT crowd.

The Jerrys are quite the characters… helping souls to become everything they need to be to become humans on Earth, getting personality and finding their spark.

This movie explores the intricacies of what it means to be alive. Kids will love it and you will appreciate it.

The Bad

Soul will have you twisted inside out a bit just like the 2015 animated movie Inside Out which was also directed by  Pete Docter. Soul is a bit heavier thematically than Inside Out.

The plot follows a very predictable formula, linear, you can pretty much figure out where its going, well, of course, it’s supposed to be for the young at heart….

Its got a couple of plot holes but I guess it’s more of the things that happen than why or how they happen…  just keep watching.

The Ugly

The movie explores concepts that might go over the head of a younger audience… It is after all about life and death and everything in between.

It doesn’t give you answers to the question of life and the universe rather it just leaves you to speculate and the answer is what you make of it, what is your purpose?

I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to this older fish and says, "I'm trying to find this thing they call the ocean." "The ocean?" says the older fish. "That's what you're in right now." "This?" says the young fish. "This is water. What I want is the ocean."

Final Thoughts

Soul is Pixar’s first film to feature an African-American protagonist, Joe Gardener (Jamie Foxx). The film has received accolades for its approach in dealing with diversity and different ethnicities.

Disney released a short animated film titled 22 vs. Earth a 2021 prequel to Soul with a running time of six minutes.

Have you watched this animated feature?