Why I Love Soul
First, I admired the way Soul balanced the specificity and the universality of its protagonist, Joe Gardner. For a film to speak to such universal questions as the meaning of life, every audience member needs to be able to see a piece of themselves in Joe’s emotional arc. At the same time, Joe must interact with his world in a way that is specific to him—he must feel like a real person with a fully developed history. The film finds this equilibrium very early, and, in my opinion, it maintains it. During the eighth minute, I paused the film to see how much time had passed, mainly because I was so impressed at how quickly and naturally I had come to understand who Joe is, from his desires to his flaws. I found him to be the least average “Average Joe.” Co-director of the film Kemp Powers perfectly articulated my reaction to Joe’s introduction in the film’s opening act in an episode of the Spotify exclusive podcast “Soul Stories.” He says that the “hyper specificity [of Joe’s character] helps people see the universality.” The filmmakers at Pixar clearly understand that writing a whole, unique character achieves more than writing characters that generically represent a group of people. This is vital to note because it shows that audiences can deeply relate to characters from any background if they are written well. There is no reason not to tell diverse stories.
It was the reveal of the film’s central thesis that propelled this movie from one that I immensely enjoyed to one that I will always hold close to my heart. However, I was still very much in love during the film’s ride, before I knew it would end in such an impactful place. I think the moment I fell in love was when 22 (in Joe’s body) stepped out onto the New York streets. The visuals and sound are overwhelming, in your face, just like the city feels when you first arrive. The animators managed to perfectly balance the artistry and quirkiness of animation with the photo-realness required to make New York look and feel like New York. Soul’s New York City was like a painting that perfectly captures the essence of its subject. You know it is a painting, yet the shapes that the artist renders evoke the same feelings and reactions as the subject would in real life. In a way, Soul’s New York felt more like New York than New York itself.
Seeing New York portrayed in such a realistic yet loving way was especially meaningful for me, as I spent four years living and going to school in New York City. I left the city for Spain in October of last year, and I miss it every day. Watching 22 experience the city for the first time reminded me of when I was 18 and first walked the avenues alone. I was almost as unsure as 22 was. The small things that 22 fell in love with, from bagels and pizzas to watching autumn leaves dance around people walking to work or school, are the things that I miss the most about the place.
I am constantly in awe of Pixar’s ability to visualize abstract and complicated ideas. In this film, I was taken aback by their representation of lost souls. When I am in the throes of a panic attack, I feel like 22 as a lost soul, surrounded by chaotic darkness, my voice echoing criticisms, hating myself. I have always found it incredibly difficult to describe anxiety and depression to others, yet Soul somehow managed to represent those experiences visually. Through a line from Graham Norton’s character, Moonwind, the film also establishes a profound connection between passion and obsession by showing how the “zone” state of flow is intimately connected to losing oneself. This resonated with the times when I have felt the most lost in my life. I am motivated by a desire to learn and create. The combination of these things can produce a flow in me. I became lost when learning transformed into valuing achievement. Achievement became everything; it was the only metric by which I evaluated anything in my life.
As I previously suggested, the film’s earnest approach to its themes of life and death, and most importantly, its thematic twist, carried it over the top. Throughout the story, the audience wants Joe to achieve his goal—to get to the gig with Dorothea Williams and become a professional jazz musician. The film then guides us exquisitely to the realization that Joe was wrong, that souls do not have one true purpose. On my first watch, my ears perked up at the line where Joe tells 22 that walking and eating pizza aren’t life purposes, “they’re just plain old living.” That line is repeated multiple times. 22 even uses the line to remind herself of her perceived inadequacy when she becomes a lost soul. Then, as Joe is about to return to Earth for the concert, Jerry, one of the soul counselors, remarks that humans are “so basic” with their talk of purposes and meanings of life. That line made me laugh as I reminded myself of my “basic” philosophizing on the ~reason~ we are here that seems to have played through my head incessantly since March. At this point, I understood where the film was going thematically, but it wasn’t until Dorothea Williams’ fish allegory (delivered impeccably by Angela Bassett) that the message struck me with its full force.
Reaching a goal is great, but reaching a goal will not solve our lives. In college, I was obsessed with earning a 4.0 every semester. Every decision I made was in service of my grades—if I spent time with friends, that time was carefully calculated, and I always felt a twinge of guilt, thinking that I should be studying. Yet, when I looked at my transcript at the end of the semester and saw the 4.0 number in small print, it didn’t feel nearly as good as I had anticipated. The film shows that Joe’s achievements, like mine, are valuable. However, they are not the only things that give our lives value. Soul is earnest in its message. It seems so simple and sincere, yet it is something that I will always need to be reminded of.
In March of last year, I had what I might call “a crisis of purpose” when I was rejected from a scholarship program. Of course, this rejection came at the onset of a pandemic when many of us were forced to pause our lives. I realized that I was on the wrong path, that what I thought was my purpose might not be what I was meant to do. I spent the next months obsessing over my "purpose," taking quizzes and reading books. I grieved the deaths in my family that followed this crisis of purpose, forcing me to question whether life has any meaning at all. I quit a stable job in New York and moved to Spain to teach English for a fraction of the salary I was making before.
At the end of Soul, Jerry asks Joe what he will do with his second chance at life. Joe says that he doesn’t know. I’ve read some reactions to the film that articulated a desire to know more about what happens to Joe. I, however, argue that the point of the film is that it doesn’t matter what Joe does—whether he teaches full time, pursues jazz professionally, or balances both. What matters is that he is living his life. Like Joe, I still don’t know exactly what I want to do, and that’s okay. I know which direction I am headed in, and I know that I live each day, loving that I am alive.
