Soul is an American animated fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers. the film stars the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, Daveed Diggs, Richard Ayoade, and Angela Bassett. It was released on 25th December 2020 on Disney+ Hotstar.
Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) is stuck in his life being a middle school music teacher and wants to build his career in Jazz. He gets to know about a show of a band of the jazz legend Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett). She gets impressed by his talent for playing the piano and gives him a chance of playing in one of her shows. Joe is very happy and heads to his home but he fell down a manhole. He then finds himself in Great Beyond, where the souls are being transported to another realm but Joe escapes from there and ends up in the Great Before.
There he met soul counselors, all named Jerry, who are training the unborn souls for their life on Earth. Joe is chosen to be the instructor of 22 (Tina Fey), a stubborn and full of hate soul who is not at all interested in going to Earth. She has a badge that will be completed only after finding the spark and then she'll give it to go Joe so that he could go back to Earth and 22 can live her life like she was living for millennials.
This Pixar film is written by Pete Docter, Mike Jones, and Kemp Powers. This film will give you a dreamlike and surreal experience of life and death and the good thing is that it doesn't become a shrink but is like therapy. This animated movie is too high on life lessons which the makers try to deliver through the two most wonderfully written characters, Joe and 22.
Joe is stuck in his boring school job whereas 22 is cynical and hates everything and even Mother Teresa and Abraham Lincoln failed to convince her to believe in her and to find out what she's really good at. The sequences of 22 and Joe are the strength and their soul gets misplaced with a cat and Joe's body brings comic relief. Being an animated film, this offers little comedy scenes and is very heavy on emotions and feelings.
The characters are real and don't feel fake even if they are made to appear as neon blue souls, the characters are solid and deep and the actors did an excellent job of lending their voices. Jamie Foxx as Joe and Tina Fey as 22 are exceptional and flawless with their voice acts and it's quite evident that these unreal but real characters did affect them in some way.
Phylicia Rashad as Libba, Joe's mother, is outstanding and her character as the sensible and reasonable woman truly depicts one of the strengths of this film that it tries to be genuine and impactful, and sure it does.
This is Pixar's best-animated movie I've seen in terms of animation I'm saying. The streets of New York City appears beautiful and looks like it has been shot with a camera. The music by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste is another excellent thing to witness considering that it's an animated movie.
Soul may not make you cry or make you jump in joy but it will definitely impact you in some way unexplainable. How do we get our traits and what makes us who we are? Is this what we are made for? Soul raises these moving questions in this sharp and crisp journey of 1.5 hours that it is hard not to take a deep sigh and think about ourselves and our life when the movie ends. What will happen if we die tomorrow? Did we live a life just like we wanted? Soul doesn't shy away from asking you this. It's not Coco, not Inside Out or Up. Nor that it tries to be one, it stands on its own and is surely ready for The Oscars.
Rating:- 4.5/5
Now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
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