Pixar's SOUL on Disney+

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

*MILD SPOILERS*

“One is starved of Technicolor up there”, Marius Goring’s line in A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946), finds an echo in Pete Docter’s SOUL. It may even have provided its inspiration.

The Pixar film - one of their best - explores what constitutes the “Technicolor” of that statement. It also pays homage to the stairway-to-heaven mechanism of the Powell & Pressburger masterpiece, while borrowing its central idea of a dead man bargaining or pleading for a second chance to live.

This makes SOUL sound derivative. I don’t want to give that impression, I just wanted to get the Powell & Pressburger reference out of the way, because it is so present in the film.

However, SOUL is a movie unto itself and quite unlike any other. In some scenes, it is wilfully abstract; in others, prosaic and lifelike. It is moving, funny and powerful, with one of its many strengths being it doesn’t compromise on its premise. It sees it through. It is also at times disturbing, and isn’t afraid to leave the main character - Joe - with his central dilemma unresolved at the picture’s end.

It doesn’t kowtow to children; doesn’t throw in extraneous stuff to keep younger viewers engaged; and there is nothing about it that is “toyetic”.

Some Pixar films have evolved to a point (and have the finance and distribution muscle behind them) where they can just tell interesting stories about people. Stories that have something to say. SOUL is one such film. When Pixar makes movies like this, the studio reminds us that animation is not a genre but simply a form of story-telling, one that can be vital, accessible and profound.

SOUL needs experience on behalf of the viewer to get its full meaning and power (this is why it isn’t necessarily a film for children.) When Joe is on the stairway-to-heaven and sees what is happening up ahead, I was willing him to turn and run. I got so involved with his life in the first act (which is told beautifully and deftly) that I was acutely annoyed when the premise of the movie happened to him. Holy crap. Stop! Don’t let that happen... but stories only really start when something goes wrong, and so Joe’s journey gets underway.

Janie Foxx is excellent as Joe, the music teacher, who harbours a dream to work full-time as a musician; Tina Fey is good, if a little obvious, as lost soul, “22”; Graham Norton is lively and surprisingly good as Moonwind, an old hippy who bridges the Great Before and Earth to help find souls who are lost; Rachel House is superb as soul-accountant, Terry. Terry is determined to balance the books when Joe’s soul goes missing, and sets off to track him down and bring him back.

SOUL is a landmark film for portraying black characters with African-American features. It doesn’t fall into the trap of designing white characters and then simply tinting their skin to fulfil a diversity checklist. This is important. Four Inclusion Strategists are credited at Pixar, and their work pays off. What is presented on screen, via the film’s range of black characters, looks and feels natural, while allowing for extreme poses and expressions without tipping into caricature. It’s a remarkable achievement, and it’s about time.

I cannot praise SOUL highly enough. Forget the car crash of WONDER WOMAN 84, see a real movie with a real story at its heart instead. It might have you in tears. It’s a beauty.

SOUL is available to watch on Disney+ at no additional cost, ie it’s free to subscribers. Consider it a lovely Christmas present.