'Soul'
Walt Disney famously bristled at the notion that he made movies for kids.
“I do not make films primarily for children. I make them for the child in all of us, whether we be six or 60,” he said. “I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should.”
Just a few minutes in to Pixar’s Soul, it was hard not to think of this sentiment. One of the reasons so many of us use Disney’s films to introduce our young children to the very concept of film itself is because they don’t “[play] down” to the grown-ups dutifully watching along. They have several levels. Still, Pixar’s films of late generally seem to be pushing this notion to the limit. If the Disney classics are, broadly speaking, about growing up, then Pixar’s - again, especially of late - are more deeply existential.
WALL-E, Up, Inside Out, and Coco traffic in nothing less than life and death and the search for meaning and identity. And now there is Soul to add to the list. It both continues this trend and is also the most direct and explicit on these themes. After all, its main character Joe Gardner, a music teacher who dreams of being a professional jazz musician, finds himself in an existential pickle before the title of the film is introduced.
I love all of those spiritual predecessors. And I loved Soul. But, you know, what about the 5-year-old on the couch next to me? I’m not speaking hypothetically or whimsically here. She is a big part of the reason those other Pixar films hold such a special place. They aren’t as much fun if they become late-night viewing. Isn’t it a bit of a Pyrrhic victory if a film both high-minded and literal enough to have a Great Before and a Great Beyond is lost on the young ones - or, worse, bores them? I turned to my left as Joe’s green, glowy, blobby soul began pinballing around the Great Before, and, well, it turns out Walt Disney is a much smarter man than me. My kiddo was rapt and smiling. There is much here to appreciate, whether you be five or six or 37 or 60.
Soul is co-directed by Pete Docter, who also brought us Inside Out. Together, the two films feel like a sort of micro- and macro-economics on the subject of existence itself. Inside Out is about the emotions held delicately in balance inside all of us. Soul is, to a degree, about the things in life we miss when we become too inwardly focused. It, too, is about balance, but instead about the balance between personal satisfaction and professional ambition.
As someone who basically had their dream job in their early 20s and then decided to find a different career after realizing it brought me little in the way of happiness, Soul spoke to me on a deeply personal level. As someone who loves animation, it nourished something even more basic.
Soul bounces between the streets and jazz clubs and shops of present-day New York City and the existential planes of the Great Before and the Great Beyond. It’s a stunning contrast because New York is unbelievably realistic. Were it not for Jamie Foxx’s Joe or Phylicia Rashad’s Libba or Donnell Rawlings’ Dez in the middle of the scenery, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a real barber shop or tailor shop or jazz club and what Pixar’s animators have brought to life. The slice of pizza that 22, Joe Gardner’s sparring partner voiced by Tina Fey, evokes smells and sensations of being in Manhattan so strong, you’ll want to sop the grease off the top with a napkin.
The existential planes, meanwhile, glow with otherworldly colors. There are none of the hard edges of New York. Everything is soft and round and neon pink or green or blue. There are really no rules here other than Disney’s 12 basic principles of animation. That’s usually a scenario where the limitless possibilities of animation are allowed to flourish, and this is no exception. Imagination seems boundless. And so Picasso’s cubist paintings are brought to life alongside a rainbow-hued Spanish galleon.
To be in New York City with Joe Gardner is to think of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald records and of wolfing down greasy pizza at 3 am. To be in the Great Before is to think of Fantasia and the pink elephants scene in Dumbo. It is to reach worlds only possible in this medium.
Docter, along with co-director and co-writer Kemp Powers and composers Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste have done nothing less than to bring our world and a vibrant, impossible fantasy world together, and they have done it with a story that speaks to everyone, no matter their age.
The question of whether Pixar even makes kids movies anymore - the one I was pondering just a few minutes in to Soul with some concern - is rendered irrelevant, silly even, by the time the credits roll. Spend some time with this one. It will hit you deep.