How Disney’s Pixar Movie *Soul* Delivers a Salve for the World-Weary

Jazzing up metaphysics, philosophy, and spirituality

*Warning — Spoilers ahead.*

Pixar released Soul directly to streaming on Disney+ on Christmas Day 2020. Starring Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey, Soul addresses the human search for the meaning of life through a middle-aged, struggling jazz singer. After dying unexpectedly, he drifts through other dimensions, where he befriends 22 (Tina Fey), a soul who has given up on receiving her Earth pass, which enables new souls to experience life on earth.

I hadn’t heard of this movie and hadn’t watched much Pixar since Wall-E and Up. I’d missed Inside Out and Coco, but something about Soul was calling me Christmas morning.

While drifting off to sleep on Christmas Eve, I’d scanned through my New York Times app and a blurb about Soul being released directly to streaming, due to the pandemic, caught my eye.

On Christmas morning, I awoke in a reflective and melancholy mood, thinking about how our kids are experiencing a pandemic Christmas. As they grow into pre-adolescence and adolescence, they are grappling with forming their individual and autonomous identities.

The movie begins with Joe in the earth realm, but a sudden death takes him to the You realm, where souls are mentored and only sent to earth once they’ve found their spark. Joe desperately wants to get back to earth to make it to a once-in-a-lifetime gig he’s been invited to play that evening. After running away from the Great Beyond, which could be equated with Heaven or a more transcendent energetic state, depending on your point of view, he gets into shenanigans with his mentee, 22. As the movie progresses, we see characters moving deliberately through time and space by getting in a meditative, transcendent zone.

A Movie About Presence

Christmas morning came and I sat on the couch with my husband David at 7:00 in the morning. He informed me he’d canceled our Disney+ subscription, but it hadn’t yet run out. Phew!

The house was quiet and it really hit home our kids no longer believe in Santa Claus or try to stay up to catch sight of reindeer or the jolly old gift-bearing cookie-eating guy. They no longer come running to us Christmas morning to shake us awake and rip into stockings and toys. That old cliché about life going faster the older you get? Yeah, it’s right.

David and I turned on Disney+ and started watching Soul. I didn’t know exactly what it was about and I didn’t care. The portrayal of the emotional experience of life throughout human existence was enough to keep me transfixed on the movie. I watched a 45-year-old, middle school band teacher, Mr. Gardner, race through a bustling New York City, letting life pass him by, while chasing dreams that never pan out.

He checks into his job as a band teacher and dreams about playing gigs while teaching the kids. Incorporating soul music — jazz — into the movie helps layer its message in a sensually appealing way. There is a theme throughout of engaging all of our animal senses to help us be mindful in our earth-presence.

We still weren’t sure where the movie was going when our ten and thirteen year old woke up. Putting the movie on pause, we opened stockings and presents.

Last Christmas, I was experiencing a bout of acute depression and much like Joe Gardner, was facing my own existential crisis. This year, I’m feeling better, healing, and attempting to live in the moment, which ended up being the main point of Soul.

Pixar’s First Black Writer, Co-Director, and Lead Actor

Soul is groundbreaking in that it's Pixar’s first movie with a Black writer and co-director, Kemp Powers. Additionally, Joe Gardner is the first leading Black actor in a Pixar movie. Pete Docter reached out to Black playwright Kemp Powers to ask him to write Joe Gardner as a more realistic, multi-dimensional character and to co-direct the movie. I’d say he hit it out of the ballpark.

Jamie Foxx gives a compelling performance as Joe Gardner and Tina Fey, playing a self-doubting soul, named 22, is particularly convincing and funny. The pair has a chemistry that keeps the film easily moving forward, riffing off of each other’s personalities and making for lots of humor, including slapstick, when Joe finds himself in the body of a cat and 22 finds herself in the body of Joe, giving the film a slight All of Me vibe.

Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Spirituality

I’m not one for getting metaphysics, yet I get metaphysics. Nature is my particular portal into understanding the realm of spirituality, metaphysics, and philosophy which Soul discusses. I was tickled to see the emphasis on being present in our day-to-day lives represented by sky watching, focusing on falling leaves, and being cast under the spell of a twirling maple seed.

In the first two-thirds of the movie, Joe Gardner is most interested in himself and propelling himself towards his dreams, while 22 feels like a failure who is not fit to live on Earth.

Depression and Hope

As the movie winds down, Soul tackles some pretty big issues such as depression and lost souls. Joe becomes depressed when he realizes fulfilling a dream doesn’t make him feel any different. 22 finds herself in the land of lost souls, where the angry, disappointed, self-doubting, and ashamed beings find themselves turning on others and running from their feelings.

Moonwind (Graham Norton), is a hippy guru who explains metaphysics to Joe and 22 throughout the movie. When Joe discovers 22 has gone to the land of lost souls, Moonwind says, “Lost souls are obsessed from something that disconnects them from life.”

Joe finds himself facing depression and an existential crisis boiling down to questioning the meaning of life. He then realizes he must help 22 realize her life’s purpose. As someone who has experienced depression for decades and was struggling with an acute episode last December, this message really hit home for me. Depression is on the rise during the Covid-19 pandemic. We live in a society in which depression is affecting large numbers of people, including youth. Depression is an important topic to address and Soul does a good job of addressing the issue.

Soul provides a resolution to Joe’s depression and 22’s self-doubt. The ending is feel-good and hopeful, mysterious, and open-ended. It invites its viewers to slow down, and live life on purpose.

Inspiration for the World-Weary

I insisted on family photos and a selfie of the four of us. It was a sweet holiday morning, followed by a nice afternoon of talking with some family virtually, sending texts, and Facebook messages wishing friends and family a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. We were present.

As the global collective lives through Covid19 in 2020 and 2021, unsure of what the next day, week, month, or year will bring, the message of Soul to be present in our lives is precisely relevant.

The hope, inspiration, animation, and fantastic cast, along with humor, philosophy, metaphysics, and spirituality will appeal across generations, but perhaps more so to adults than children — I’m not honestly sure. So far, the movie is receiving rave reviews.

Have you seen Soul yet? What did you think?