Pixar's "Soul" — A Reluctant Understanding of Purpose (Part 1: The Characters)
Does the movie succeed at answering "How?" and "Why?"
Hello all.
This week, I moved into my college dorm. I’ve had ideas about what to write next, but haven’t gotten around to it in the socially-distanced hassle.
I wrote this Soul review in January this year, and it took about six days. It’s a little long for a Substack post, so it’ll be in two parts.
Before writing it, I took to reading other reviews of the movie. It didn’t seem like anyone had the same gripes I did — some of them falling into the category of race theory, which I consider myself wholly unqualified to discuss. This review is more about the existential and humanistic themes of the movie, and where Pixar could’ve communicated them more effectively.
It might be a difficult read if you haven’t watched the film — so I encourage you to! Google says the runtime is only 1h, 47m. Afterward, let me know what you think!
Part 1 (this post) is about the film’s characters. Part 2 will come sometime soon, and will look at the scenes of the film and analyze their thematic quality (and I include what I enjoyed about the movie.) Thank you again!
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In Soul — Pixar's addition to our collection of movies we're forced to enjoy at home, lest we crowd into unvaccinated theaters — existentiality strikes a grade-school music teacher in New York. Before his liberating break as a jazz pianist (relinquishing him from the tedium of disappointment, misunderstanding, and a life unfulfilled), he walks inattentively into an open manhole (one of the only not spouting an unexplained cloud of smoke in New York City.) From here, his detached soul lands on an ethereal conveyor belt suspended in 'The Great Beyond,' headed for what appears the final threshold into non-existence. Realizing what's happened, Joe Gardner runs against the belt, denying the inevitability of his death.
In the next hour and a half, Joe explores the personality-imbuing realm of souls before they arrive on Earth, meets '22,' a wayward soul (nicknamed upon being the 22nd human soul to exist, stressing the duration of her stay in 'The Great Before'), is accidentally re-incarnated as a cat bearing witness to 22's ruckus & realizations in his body, and in the end, chooses to waive his existence for 22 after learning that a soul’s “purpose” isn’t hard-wired. While it remains one of the most impressively animated films, there are several obstructions or absences in the plot and characters that prevent the weighty themes from the emotion they deserve.
UNDERDEVELOPED CHARACTERS:
Connie & Dad:
The movie begins with Joe demonstrating the profundity of music to a bored classroom of preteens. During practice, Connie (the trombone prodigy among them) is laughed at for "getting lost in it" — Joe’s terminology for the inexplicably spiritual relationship to playing music that dominates his life (later described as entering “the zone.”) After lightly scolding them, he rewards us with the memory of his father taking him to a jazz club against his young reluctance; and finally understanding jazz as sacred and special.
"Connie knows what I'm talking about, right Connie?" he says, concluding his address. "I'm 12," she says bluntly.
These were the seeds for what I imagined were larger stories throughout the film, but they eventually realized themselves in disappointment. Joe's father Ray takes no significant role in the film, despite not only being the a large reason for his son's fixation with music, but himself a prized performer whose shadow Joe unfulfillingly occupies. A scene dedicated to incorporating the two (instead of small retrospectives) would couch Joe's compulsion towards jazz in passion, instead of in awkward, failed obsession. (It would also fit thematically in realizing the magnitude of meaning and "purpose" inherent in human relationships.) Instead, possibly the most important scene in the movie is left out, and Joe mentions this life-changing event in remembrance.
Connie is featured even less. As the first character that comes within range of relating to Joe (and his musical inspiration), her classroom scene is cut short by Joe excusing himself outside. We see her only once more, when she visits Mr. Gardner at his apartment for tutoring. She approaches his door initially to loudly announce she's quitting the band, unknowingly greeted by 22 in Joe's body. They talk in the hallway, and instead of a meaningful connection between Connie and Mr. Gardner, or a revelation by Connie and her "spark," we are left with dialogue that is meant for 22's character development and her understanding of life and purpose. Connie (in what felt like the shortest decision process ever), suddenly forgets about jazz being “pointless,” and excitedly leaves his apartment hallway having questionably renewed faith in her instrument. The most we get is Joe saying,
“She might say she hates everything, but trombone is her thing, she's good at it. Maybe trombone is her spark, I don’t know,”
then feverishly drops the subject. If this were more thoroughly explained through reignition of Connie’s “spark” or more of 22’s musical epiphanies instead of Connie being an indecisive middle-schooler, we would approach the film thematically instead of forcefully. Had Mr. Gardner returned to Connie (or the uninterested class) at the end of the film — having added to his vocabulary the majesty of life and how music serves as that vehicle — it would serve to strengthen Joe's denouement. Without these, the relationships in the film remain severely under-developed.
The Antagonist, Terry:
After Connie leaves, we are introduced to the motivations of the primary antagonist (other than the uncomfortable peripheral that we aren’t living adequately alongside our finite existence.) Terry, a stout and narcissistic “soul-accountant” (whose abacus is responsible for calculating each soul into The Great Beyond) realizes a quantitative mistake. The other ethereal workers — whose laissez-faire attitudes juxtapose Terry’s absolute necessity to be #1 (perhaps an undercover Pixar ode to another important figure of the same condition) — encourage him to investigate. This initiates his pursuit for Joe and 22.
This … is, unfortunately, the only motivation Terry has. His flat egoism and fixation on exceptionalism is the only sustenance for the chase. He is bent on retrieving Joe and 22 without any serious rationale. (Perhaps it’s the severity and seriousness of his job — however, this is stripped away at the end of the film, when Terry’s relaxed co-workers award Joe with his life back for “inspiring” them. If Terry’s presence in the film was so threatening, how could it have been undone so easily? Why would they have given Joe his life back after sacrificing it for 22? We’ll get to that in a second.)
Had Terry’s perfectionism toward his job been more effectively communicated as a necessity of life (as death is), this would’ve strengthened the movie’s theme, and the intensity of Joe’s interdimensional escape.
Paul and Barber Dez:
The barbershop scene is impressive. There are several nourishing points of dialogue 22 shares with the barber, who believes he’s speaking with Joe. She begins to ramble on about her interesting existence as “a theoretical construct in a hypothetical way-station between life and death,” and quickly captivates the entire shop, with the exception of Paul — a younger man represented by focusing almost exclusively on his cellphone. He’s notorious for picking at Joe in the shop:
“You are not all that. Anyone could play in a band if they wanted to,”
which prompts 22’s response:
“Oh, I get it, he’s just criticizing me to cover up the pain of his own failed dreams,”
which prompts a resounding laughter. Shortly after, Paul consoles himself, leaving a convenience store: “Julia Child didn’t succeed until she was 49…”
Paul unfortunately suffers from the same absence of allegorical development as Connie and Joe’s dad. Here lies a supremely missed opportunity to expand Pixar’s message of life and exuberance — instead, it's minimized in an out-of-focus conversation between 22 and Paul, ending in a lollipop offering as the camera quickly pans away. Paul is a character, just like Joe in the beginning, who is offensive to the film’s central theme of enjoying life in life itself; savoring its small advances on your humanity. He is hubristic, distracted, and unaware of his destructive insecurities. He isn’t “living,” which begs an interaction between him and our protagonist based on that similarity. Maybe, Joe could’ve visited Paul after being re-gifted life to mention Paul’s absence of it, or 22 could’ve made further enlightening comments about the damaging effects of negativity in one’s experience of life, pulling Paul in the direction of the movie’s message.
The barber Dez has an important lesson for the shop, and bluntly draws an important pillar of the film’s plot. Still confused about the mechanics of “purpose,” 22 intrigues upon his predetermined life as a barber — under the impression everyone has a predetermination: “Wait, but you were born to be a barber, weren’t you?” He replies:
“I wanted to be a veterinarian … I was planning to, when I got out of the Navy. Then my daughter got sick, and [laughs], barber school is a lot cheaper than veterinarian school.”
Still confused, 22 assumes Dez is unfortunately stuck as a barber, branded by unhappiness. He sharply corrects her: “Woah woah, slow your roll there Joe, I’m happy as a clam my man, not everyone can be Charles Drew inventing blood transfusions … I get to meet interesting folks like you, make them happy, and make them handsome.” Despite turbulent life circumstances, Dez rejects the idea of singular life purpose — rejecting Joe’s narrow focus on becoming a famous jazz performer. This was a powerful scene that incorporated the heavy theme of the film and extended its importance to everyone, even those that exist in our peripheral.
…
(In Part 2: “Unassertive Scenes,” “The Good,” and conclusion!)