Movie Breakdown: Soul (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
Sure, every once in a while old Pixar takes a stumble or two and throws a steaming pile on to the screen. But it’s predictable enough (Cars) and rare enough that I’m going to say their newest film is going to continue the trend of delightful and mildly innovative animation.
Post-Screening Ramble:
Pixar, as we all know by now, has a shtick. A shtick they do very, very well. This shtick – to paraphrase – is to take one of the many stages (read: trauma) of human existence and boil it down to its very essence and then infuse that essence into an absolutely adorable, impressively marketable, always gorgeous piece of animation. On occasion they extend their reach to larger issues (Wall-E) but for the most part, regardless of the display onscreen, this is the sandbox in which they play. Soul is very much an inhabitant of that Pixar spectrum and, under the guidance of one of their masters – Pete Docter – it’s an absolutely lovely film. This go-around Pixar, Docter and his co-director Kemp Powers are dealing with death and reincarnation and the possibility of a spark that drives every soul. Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) is a talented jazz pianist who makes a paycheck teaching high school band, but wants nothing more than his big break. And he gets it with Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett), a salty sax-vet who’s primed to give him his big break. But, well small spoiler, he dies. And when he dies he’s sent to what seems to be an Apple-produced purgatory, a sort of middle ground where new souls go down to Earth to start their lives and old souls go up to, ahem, The Great Beyond. Joe meets 22 (Tina Fey, creepily good at existing in the voiceland between teenager and adult), a rogue soul who just doesn’t want to take the next step. Joe’s fighting to go back to Earth, 22 is fighting to stay, plans are hatched, foibles occur, and quite frankly, delight is had. This is Pixar operating at their highest level. It’s an emotional, inventive, stunning film that gingerly pulls apart our fears of death, and our fears of failure in life, and what happens when we are somehow able to overcome both. The scenes in the cyber-purgatory are a hybrid (true or not) of traditional line animation and computer graphics and with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s upbeat surges of soundtrack bopping along in the background – it’s up there for best worlds Pixar has created. That said, the true joys of the film take place on Earth after a mishap that puts Joe in a healing cat’s body and 22 in Joe’s body. It’s set piece after set piece of (computer) physical humor that builds and builds on laughter and emotion and it’s finally wrapped in a lovely Pixar bow no one watching didn’t see coming. Seriously, it comes out on X-mas and it is exactly the type of film to gather round the old holiday tube and watch.
One Last Thought:
I knew Reznor and Ross were doing the soundtrack for this and I was still surprised when I saw their names in the credits. It’s just so lively, so spirited.
