By Lydia Johnson
The latest release from Disney in their Pixar Originals class had me worried - had I become too cynical in my old age to enjoy a Disney classic? Surely not! Thankfully, I was not alone and although Soul has seen some great reviews, I am part of what seems to be the majority who saw it as Disney trying too hard and falling short from its usual level.
With a title like Soul, I was ready to have my heart crushed once again in the classic ‘take her to the moon for me’, ‘To infinity and beyond’, ‘Remember Me’, Married Life montage, (I could go on but I’m already tearing up) Pixar fashion we have come to expect. It is truly a momentous occasion when you go from the child who laughs and cheers, to the adult who sobs until their muscles ache when watching a Disney film. Soul did try, rather painfully, to pull one of these moments out of its storyline, it didn’t succeed however and instead left me feeling empty, confused, and worried that I didn’t have a soul.
Pixar has recently explored emotions in Inside Out, the day of the dead and the afterlife in Coco, loss in Onwards, and now all that surrounds the myth and ideals of life before, life during, and life after existence in Soul. They are pushing the boundaries of concepts that we understand and can portray to children, but they have succeeded especially in the cases of Inside Out and Coco whose success rests in the ability to approach ‘difficult subjects with warmth and accessibility, teaching its audiences an interesting and life-affirming lesson’[1]. So why did Soul fall short of this ability?
Soul, the 23rd feature film from Pixar, focuses on Joe Gardiner, ‘a music teacher with dreams of playing [jazz] piano professionally’[2], notably the first of the animation studio’s films with a ‘Black protagonist’[3] (even if most of the film is spent with Joe’s soul, who’s ‘rendered as a sort of humanoid blue blob’[4]). Joe unfortunately falls down a manhole, leaving him in a coma-like state, just as he has been granted his opportunity of a lifetime - to perform with a jazz group and the infamous saxophonist, Dorothea Williams.
Joe is then thrown into an adventure that uncovers The Great Beyond, The Great Before and The Zone. Each ‘ever-evolving terrain occupied by 2D and 3D life forms’[5] allowed the different contrasting animation styles to collide in a visual metropolis. The Great Beyond is a bright, pastel haven for souls to develop and find their sparks before entering the world, with Picasso’s light painting inspired cosmic creatures running the system like ethereal caretakers. We have The Zone, a place where lost souls go, drawn out from humans on Earth who have lost their way, forced to trudge the terrain turning into odd, black abyss-style forms perhaps being saved by Graham Norton, perhaps not. And then there’s The Great Beyond. Although we never actually see what The Great Beyond holds, Joe is forced onto the, perhaps more recognisable, moving escalator towards the bright light. The multitude of these dimensions, and the ideas that they hold is where the first crack in Soul appears.
Pixar had to be careful not to hold one belief above any other, unlike the celebration of the Day of the Dead and Mexican culture in Coco, Soul needed to reach all of the audience and ensure that as many ideas on afterlife and rebirth were accounted for as best they could, but it is this imprecision, a ‘deliberate attempt to draw piecemeal from various belief systems and sidestep offending any religious audiences’[6] that forces Soul to have no aim, point, or resolution. Soul doesn’t address any presence, or absence, of higher powers at all, a clever and safe path for the creators to take, but with this in mind the audience has no idea what the reasoning behind being introduced to these different dimensions is. Yes, they all play their part in the storyline with each depicted as important aspects to the plot, but this importance is hugely over-emphasised for they are actually vague distractions. The message Soul is trying to portray has nothing to do with achieving, realising, overcoming or succumbing to, any of the dimensions in play here and yet there seems to be a storyline attached to each part. Joe has to help 22 find her spark which would seem to be connected to The Great Before, but this never actually takes place in The Great Before, they do this in New York. We lose 22 to The Zone for around 4 minutes of the movie that, if you removed them, would change nothing. 22 could have just gone into hiding in her ‘house’ and sulked for the same effect, and we never go along with Joe into The Great Beyond. That’s three very different storylines and ideas that tease being explored completely, confusing the true storyline that’s actually in play here.
Although wonderfully pleasing to the eye thanks to the many animators, with detail to the point of ‘chipped paint on a railing and grease on a pepperoni pizza’[7] highlighting one of the many messages that we should be appreciating everyday wonders, this attempt to do everything and cover all sides of the many-sided dice of how we come to be and where we go afterwards, results in neither the astral world, nor the real world being truly explored and expanded on in the movie. The plot becomes convoluted, ‘a knot of several stories and ideas’[8] that sometimes manage to mesh together and sometimes contradict each other, veering down a path of abandon of storytelling for a confusing maze of pseudo-spiritual planes of existence. I believe the BBC put it best – ‘it all gets a bit much’[9].
So, hopefully, I’ve established just how head spinning Soul is, and the fact that it’s ‘urgency and idealism’[10] take it to the very brink of incoherence while holding a ‘kind of watered-down New Ageism’[11] that’s basically inoffensive but also uninspired, but! this is still a Disney Pixar Original and that means that there must be some endearing message behind it – even if we have to do the work in unravelling it. After taking the time to think about it…I’m still not 100% sure on the answer, which is why this is the other area the film comes undone, but here are my thoughts on it anyway.
On one side of it, there’s not much logic involved in this wonderfully weird story of a pianist who is ‘accidentally transported to a strange, otherworldly domain’[12], and on the other side, there’s not much logic in the story of a stubborn soul refusing to discover her spark and embark upon the journey to Earth, despite the ‘Who’s Who of historical figures’[13] who have tried to help her, but, stick them together into a classic Freaky Friday role reversal and we find our underlying premise for the film – understanding another being’s point of view to better understand and value your own.
22 is thrown into the body of Joe, and Joe’s soul is thrown into the body of 22…wait, no…that’s not right, Joe’s soul is thrown into the body of a therapy cat…who’s soul ends up…actually, that’s never discussed…do cats not have souls, or even a consciousness?!
So, it’s not a perfect Freaky Friday ol’ switcheroo, but you understand the principle. Where does that leave us though? Well, 22 has to navigate a world she doesn’t want to be part of so that Joe(’s body) can attend the first night of playing with the band and achieving his life’s dream - even though 22 never learns to play the piano and struggles with walking to start with but never mind - while Joe’s soul (as a cat) is forced to appreciate the small things in the world through 22’s first experience of it. A Disney explanation of friendship within the ‘familiar parameter of a buddy comedy at its finest’[14], we’ve had Joy and Sadness, Sully and Mike, Marlin and Dory, Woody and Buzz, and now Joe and 22.
22’s storyline is actually very easily concluded. She originally doesn’t see the necessity of going to Earth when she is perfectly happy being in The Great Before as it is. Once she sees the world, however, the hustle and bustle of New York, the small delights in a falling seed pod in the wind, the taste of pizza, the spirit in a child’s eyes while doing something they love, the community found at a local barber’s, she comes around to the idea and decides that Earth wouldn’t be that bad after all. How lovely, she can now find her spark and return to Earth for her journey in a body now understanding how important it is to someone to have a passion to follow. It’s Joe’s storyline that takes its toll on the movie.
Joe is having a midlife crisis. He is at a time in his life where he is faced with the decision of taking on an actual job and insisting on pursuing his yet-to-take-off dream of being a professional jazz pianist. The children watching are left to do the ‘most heavy lifting’[15] to keep up with Joe’s story when a midlife crisis is but a sliver of the human experiences with which children are likely to resonate with. Following his journey of overcoming his mother’s overbearing emotional blackmail to do the sensible thing where it’s hard not to feel as if the film has lost track of its internal logic once again, we are left with an ever expanding category of souls in the world with rules that seem to overlap the now foggy growing dimensions surrounding its premise. The focus is once again being ripped between the exploration of these dimensions and the main plot idea. Joe does finally end up fulfilling his dream and performing with the jazz band but is then left feeling even more empty than before. Joe’s self-help lingo-driven journey about finding your spark and seeking your purpose during his midlife crisis concludes in a resoundingly unsatisfactory way for the audience. There were two easy outs for the writers at this point; Joe realises that although he can make it as a professional jazz pianist, his true calling, or purpose, is to inspire the next generation through teaching the joy and passion of music at school, or, Joe realises that although inspiring the next generation in a classroom is exciting, he does truly want to follow his dream, or spark, into the world of performing professionally night after night, in order to reach the eudaimonia of souls as much as possible. The writers chose neither.
The movie leaves us with the highlighting of society’s ‘capitalistic focus on individual success’[16] and talent, and the idea that our lives only have purpose if we are the best, or the most famous, or the most beloved while it is still unclear whether the film ultimately ‘offers a call to arms to pursue a passion or a warning’[17] that creative passion alone doesn’t provide a fulfilling life. Neither sing ‘Disney Pixar’ to me…so perhaps, instead, Soul is about wondering if we could seek out something simpler in life, the idea that the true joy of living is that we get to do it in the first place? A conclusion about the value of ‘living life to its fullest, appreciating the journey’[18]…well, it does reflect the universally targeted audience but that’s rather boring and blandly familiar. The problem is, though, that this consideration is left so starkly at the end of the movie, that you ‘ultimately don’t care at all about Joe or 22’[19], the audience is so distracted by all the questions that Soul doesn’t get around to answering. What are people’s sparks? Are they different to people’s passions? Should we not look to succeed through our sparks? Do we even need a spark/passion? Are we left to follow a mundane life because having, and succeeding in, a spark means nothing against the value of our lives? What if you are the best at something, does that become something different from a spark that allows you to pursue it? If we don’t have a passion for something, do we not have a soul? What happens if you do fall to The Zone and there’s no Graham Norton pirate there to bring you back? I could go on.
There is one well-done aspect of the film, though, which is important to applaud, and that is the representation of jazz music throughout the film. Not since Fantasia has a Disney film treated music with such reverence and it’s true that Soul gives ‘itself over fully to [Jon Batiste’s] music’[20] in a way we can only thank it for. Even with its lack of clarity, and ‘headache-inducing structure’[21] that seems as though it has been taken apart and reassembled many times by many people, all of whom have ‘contributed plot points and conceits of their own’[22], Soul is still a wonderful celebration of all life has to offer, putting ‘diversity, family and community at its centre’[23] in a way Disney can’t resist, and this is no better reflected than in the celebration and immersive insight it gives the audience into the New York jazz scene and culture upholding this. I couldn’t agree more with the idea that the movie’s treatment of jazz as both a ‘dynamic art form and a Black cultural touchstone’[24] is affectionate and energetic, with the soundtrack being another Disney addition to my playlists with no questions asked. Well done to all of the team behind the music, a true inspiration for both budding jazz enthusiasts and the curious children hearing this genre for the first time.
So, there we have it. Pixar may ‘no longer be synonymous with the finest in American animation’[25], with other studios turning our more entertaining and technically impressive cartoons on a regular basis, but Disney Pixar will always hold a special place in most people’s hearts. Soul won’t be pushing any top runners out of position any time soon, but it is another beautiful adaptation from the powerhouse showcasing once again their ability to produce mind-expanding concepts and existential enquiries like no other. It has all the features you’d expect to find in a Pixar movie. The ‘sublime visual invention, A-list movie cast, and heady mixture of top-notch slapstick and verbal humour’[26]. It occasionally trips over its own narrative shoelaces, tying ‘a redemptive message to a bizarrely convoluted plot’[27], but it’s Disney Pixar, so we move on without losing any fondness for the studio.
[1] Soul review | Pixar is at its best when it puts original ideas first - Radio Times [2] 'Soul' reviews: What critics are saying about Pixar's newest film (cnbc.com) [3] Soul, review: With beauty, humour, and heart, this is Pixar at its very best | The Independent [4] Soul, review: With beauty, humour, and heart, this is Pixar at its very best | The Independent [5] 'Soul' Review: A Sublime Mediation on Music, and a Sketchy One on the Afterlife (slantmagazine.com) [6] 'Soul' Review: A Sublime Mediation on Music, and a Sketchy One on the Afterlife (slantmagazine.com) [7] Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’ - BBC Culture [8] 'Soul' reviews: What critics are saying about Pixar's newest film (cnbc.com) [9] Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’ - BBC Culture [10] Soul review – Pixar's rapturous tale of a jazz nut on a surreal out-of-body journey | Film | The Guardian [11] Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’ - BBC Culture [12] Soul review – Pixar's rapturous tale of a jazz nut on a surreal out-of-body journey | Film | The Guardian [13] 'Soul' review: Pixar's life-after-death movie rivals its classics - CNN [14] 'Soul' Review: A Sublime Mediation on Music, and a Sketchy One on the Afterlife (slantmagazine.com) [15] 'Soul' Review: A Sublime Mediation on Music, and a Sketchy One on the Afterlife (slantmagazine.com) [16] Soul, review: With beauty, humour, and heart, this is Pixar at its very best | The Independent [17] 'Soul' Review: A Sublime Mediation on Music, and a Sketchy One on the Afterlife (slantmagazine.com) [18] Soul review: Pixar’s new movie is packed with jokes and whimsy, but there’s one thing missing. (slate.com) [19] Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’ - BBC Culture [20] 'Soul' Review: A Sublime Mediation on Music, and a Sketchy One on the Afterlife (slantmagazine.com) [21] Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’ - BBC Culture [22] Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’ - BBC Culture [23] Soul, review: With beauty, humour, and heart, this is Pixar at its very best | The Independent [24] Soul review: Pixar’s new movie is packed with jokes and whimsy, but there’s one thing missing. (slate.com) [25] Pixar’s Soul is ‘a gorgeous muddle’ - BBC Culture [26] Soul review | Pixar is at its best when it puts original ideas first - Radio Times [27] Soul review – Fantasia meets A Matter of Life or Death | Pixar | The Guardian