*This article contains spoilers for the Disney Pixar Movie ‘‘Soul’’*
On Christmas Day, Disney+ released their newest Pixar film that was originally intended for theaters, “Soul,” available to its subscribers.
“Soul” follows around a middle school band director named Joe Gardner, who originally wanted to be a famous jazz musician. After landing a huge gig, Joe falls into a manhole and ends up heading towards The Great Beyond. Determined to play his gig before he dies, Joe ends up in The Great Before and gets paired up to train a cynical soul, 22, who has been stuck in The Great Before for several millennia, determined not to live because they see it as pointless.
Joe and 22 find Moonwind, who helps lost souls. Moonwind returns Joe to Earth and ends up sending 22 with him. Joe is relieved to be back until he realizes he ended up in the therapy cat’s body, Mr. Mittens, and 22 ended up in his body.For the rest of the movie, it’s a race to get Joe back into his own body before his gig.
Starring Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Angela Bassett and Daveed Diggs, “Soul” is, in my opinion, Pixar’s best movie. However, there are several aspects of this movie that I believe deem it not worthy for children.
One is the fact that the main character falls into a manhole and “dies” within the first ten minutes of the movie.
One quote that I find really inappropriate for a kids movie is when Joe and 22 are in The Great Before, and a group of new souls (essentially babies/toddlers) are playing, and a build- ing falls on them. Joe thinks that they all
were killed, but 22 reassures him, “you can’t crush a soul here. That’s what life on Earth is for.”
Another part of the movie that is dark is where Joe and 22 go to look for Moonwind in “the zone.”
“The zone” is where people go when they are doing something they are passionate about and end up in a euphoric state. It is also a place where lost souls, souls who have become obsessed with their passion and therefore end up broken, end up. Moonwind helps these lost souls snap out of their obsessed and broken state to find something else that they are passionate about.
For example, the audience sees Moonwind help a lost soul who belongs to a man who we assume is working a 9 to 5 office job and is secretly unhappy. In my opinion, kids should not be learning about this stuff, considering how impressionable
kids are.
With that said, I found “Soul” extremely beautiful and was bawling my eyes out by the end (I’m not someone who cries at movies often). Not only did the happy ending bring tears to my eyes, but the movie’s overall message touched me as well.
One of the movie’s overall themes is to enjoy the little things in life. Viewers see this in the scene in which 22 is in Joe’s body, and they are experiencing what it’s like to be in a body for the first time, and 22 finds the simplistic things in life breathtaking. At one point, 22, while in Joe’s body, sits on a stoop eating a lollipop and feels the breeze and is in complete bliss.
I’m someone who has struggled with depression for a good chunk of\ my life, and this movie helped me learn to appreciate the little things in life. Like when your favorite song comes on your playlist. When your dog gets excited when you come home, even if you’ve only been gone an hour. When you take a bite of your favorite food. When it’s that perfect temperature of not too hot/ not too cold outside. When you watch your favorite movie. When you see someone you haven’t seen in a long time. The feeling of clean sheets. That feeling you get when you’ve been laughing for a long time, and you can’t breathe.
“Soul” helped me learn not to take the little things and small moments in life for granted. You only get one life, and you choose how to view it.
Photo by Jamia Johnson
