A (Spoiler-Free) Review of Soul

Soul, Pixar’s 23rd feature-length film, tells the story of Joe Gardiner, a struggling jazz musician and middle school band teacher, who passes away (kinda) on the day of his big break. Rather than going to The Great Beyond, Joe escapes to The Great Before and alongside 22, an unformed human soul, attempts to return to Earth to live out his dream.

I have watched this film twice.

It brings me much laughter and joy. It makes me profoundly introspective and sad. I love it immensely.

Here are a few reasons why…

1. Pixar is just REALLY good at making movies.

Pixar has always been the best in the game when it comes to animation and they’ve just gotten better with age (take a quick look at the animation on Joe Gardiner compared to Sid in the original Toy Story).

They make good movies. Period. They’ll teach this shot construction in film schools.

The animation. The themes. The voice acting. It good.

2. The Score.

Claps, snaps, crackles, and pops for Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste. A perfect Score. Check out the soundtrack on Spotify for top tier background music.

3. Kemp Powers: Representation and Authenticity.

When Onward came out earlier this year I went through and ranked all of the Pixar movies 1-22 for the PDPs. At the end of the day, I landed on Coco as my Number 1 film. There are any number of parallels between these two movies, but one I particularly enjoy are non-white stories being told by non-white storytellers. Coco was Pixar’s second movie (after Brave) to focus on a specific ethnicity (Mexican) with Pixar staple Lee Unkirch (Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc., Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3) teaming with Adrian Molina, an American filmmaker of Mexican descent. Similarly, Soul teams Pixar legend, and Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter (Monster’s Inc., Up, Inside Out) with Kemp Powers to create Joe Gardiner – Pixar’s first black lead. Pixar appears to be continuing the trend with Enrico Casarosa helming Luca (2021) and Domee Shi directing Turning Red (2022).

Pixar’s commitment to telling diverse, representative stories is admirable (here’s one of my favorite writers/people – Shea Serrano – on what it meant to take his sons to see Coco), and their commitment to bringing in underrepresented filmmakers to tell those stories make the movies better.

4. This specific joke right here

(For the full effect, please see gif here)

Folks. I cackled.

5. Another Step Down the Pixar Path

Pixar’s development has, to a large degree, tracked my own life. I was 7 years old when Toy Story was released (I went to the movie for my birthday party). I was in college for Toy Story 3. And now, here I am, a 32 year old sometime-adult trying to reckon with just how much I have in common with Soul’s soul-less investment banker.

There’s been a lot of internet chatter about whether Soul is a kid’s movie. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Like almost all of Pixar’s recent films, there’s enough there for kids to enjoy while adults wrestle with some of the movie’s more mature themes. But for those of us who grew up alongside Andy - sneaking peeks to see if our toys came to life when we left the room and then struggling to leave those same toys behind – Joe Gardiner’s contemplation of what makes a life strikes a chord.