Soul: A Wholesome Start to The Year
Its not very often, that lines in films make me pause the film, rewind it and watch that line again. But not very often, I mean all the time because I’m a sucker for good lines/monologues. For me, films have always been a director’s medium, but there are these moments in between, where the writing just makes the scene. One of my favorite examples of that has to be the park bench scene in Good Will hunting, and my new favorite animated film, Soul written and directed by Pete Docter.
“I’m Just Afraid That If I Died Today My Life Would Have Amounted To Nothing” said Joe Gardner. Just that one dialogue could be the ultimate theme/summary for the film.
‘Soul’ follows the life of Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx),a middle school jazz teacher in his late 30’s trying to convert his love for jazz music into a stable career. He’s been thinking about a career as a jazz musician, ever since his father, a jazz musician himself gave him his first taste of jazz in one of New York’s finest jazz clubs. Joe loves music. To him, from when we wakes up in the morning, to when he sleeps in the night, it’s all he can think about.
One day, his life takes a turn and his former students calls him to audition for jazz legend Dorothea Williams’ band. Joe kills it at the audition, and he’s invited to come play with the band the same night. Ecstatic, he rushes home and on the way he falls down a manhole.
When Joe opens his eyes, he finds himself in a deep passage heading towards a huge body of light. He discovers that he is no longer in his body, and that he has died. Now along with the other souls, he is journeying into The Great Beyond.
Unable to process the magnitude of the situation, Joe escapes and surfaces in a place called as the Great before, the place where Souls come from. Here all the souls are given various attributes, and then sent down to Earth to enter new human bodies. Here in the Great Before, Joe is mistaken for a mentor and he is put in charge of a particularly rebellious soul, 22 voiced by Tina Fey.
22 is rebellious Soul, who still hasn’t found her special attribute or her spark. In an attempt to play along with his mistaken identity, Joe takes 22 under his wing and tries to get her interested with various activities. One particularly funny montage, is of 22 frustrating all her other mentors, from the likes of Muhammad Ali, Mother Teresa, Carl Jung and Gandhi.
In no time at all, Joe reveals to 22 that he is not who she thinks he is, and he needs to get back to Earth to play his gig. 22 introduces him to Moonwind, a mystic who promises to return him back to his original body. While jumping back to his body, Joe rushes and he enters the body of a cat and 22 enters Joe’s body. At the same time, Terry who is the accountant to the souls discovers that the count is off and Joe’s soul is missing.
While in the cats body, Joe attempts to get 22 through the rest of the day and arranges for a meeting with Moonwind right before his gig. 22 spends the rest of her day in Joe’s body, and she experiences living like never before. She eats pizza for the first time, she gets a haircut, and she engages in conversations with strangers.
While it is time to make the soul exchange happen, 22 refuses to let it happen and runs away. By that time, Terry catches up to them and takes them back. When they reach The Great before, the people there discover that 22 has found her spark.
The best aspect of ‘Soul’ has to be Docter’s interpretation of such complicated concepts and puts his own interpretation to questions such as “What happens to us after we die”. Like in Inside Out and Up, Docter takes a lighthearted approach and brings about a delightful film.
Personally, a film like Soul is what the world needed, after the year we’ve had. With the pandemic bringing a direct halt to life outside and confining a lot of people indoors, this is a movie that urges for a renewed look at life. Life as Joe understands towards the end, shouldn’t be all about finding a purpose or dedicating yourself to something that we forget to the do the most basic thing, which is to live it.
When I had finished the film, I was almost in tears. It had been a while since a film had moved me so much. Watching it at a day after the New Year, was probably the best decision I’d taken in a while. I looked for the notes app on my phone and under my resolution for the year I wrote, my favorite dialogue from the film.
