Soul

By far, the most mature, adult movie Pixar has ever done. A rumination not only on life and death, but on purpose and sense of self. The movie follows a middle school music teacher who feels he should be a successful jazz musician because ... he just feels it. An untimely accident sends his soul to the Great Beyond, where, through a series of events, he’s forced to mentor an unborn soul that hasn’t found their spark yet because they sort of refuse to. It’s through this unborn soul, named 22, that Joe starts to see that life is not about one’s passion-driven purpose, but about living. One could say that it boils down to the cliche of “it’s not the destination, but the journey”, and that wouldn’t be wrong, but it’s also reductive. Joe is convinced he is driven by a purpose embedded in his soul, and 22 is convinced they don’t have a purpose. Through the course of the movie, they learn that purpose isn’t enough if you don’t ENJOY what you’re doing. If there are nitpicks to be had, the third act is a bit cliche, as there’s the stock “two leads have a disagreement and must reconcile to learn the movie’s lesson” bit. The very end feels like a last minute rewrite, as if they had a different idea in mind, but didn’t want to go for Toy Story 3 bleakness. And the movie sort of contradicts itself about the concept of one’s spark, giving every indication that it’s a person’s passion, only to double back at the end and say it’s a generic feeling of being “ready to live”. The inconsistency in messaging is cheap and feels like a way out of a corner they’d written themselves into. But it’s still a damned fine film, touching and funny and poignant and intelligent. It may not be among Pixar’s God-tier, but given the past several years’ output, this is as close as they’ve gotten in a long time.