soul movie assignment

Pixar’s “Soul” is about a jazz pianist who has a near-death experience and gets stuck in the afterlife, contemplating his choices and regretting the existence that he mostly took for granted. Pixar veteran Pete Docter is the credited co-director, alongside playwright and screenwriter Kemp Powers , who wrote Regina King’s outstanding “One Night in Miami.” Despite its weighty themes, the project has a light touch. A musician might liken “Soul” to an extended riff, or a five-finger exercise, which is very much in the spirit of jazz, an improvisation-centered art that’s honorably and accurately depicted onscreen whenever Joe or another musician character starts to perform. 

The prologue peaks with Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx ) falling into an open manhole and ending up comatose in a hospital. It’s a bummer twist ending to a great day in which Joe was finally offered a staff job at his school, then nailed an audition with a visiting jazz legend named Dorothea Williams ( Angela Bassett ) who had invited him to play with her that night. After his near-lethal pratfall, Joe’s soul is sent to the Great Beyond—basically a cosmic foyer with a long walkway, where souls line up before heading toward a white light. Joe isn’t ready for The End, so he flees in the other direction, falls off the walkway, and ends up in a brightly colored yet still-purgatorial zone known as The Great Before. 

The Great Before is a bit like the setting of Albert Brooks’ metaphysical comedy “ Defending Your Life .” It has its own rules and procedures, and is part of a larger spiritual ecosystem wherein certain things have to happen for other things to happen. There’s a touch of video game structure/plotting to the entire premise, and it’s reinforced by the stylized drawing of Great Before characters in supervisory positions over mentors and proto-souls: they’re two-dimensional, shape-shifting Cubist figures made of elegant neon lines.

The purpose of the Great Before is to mentor fresh souls so that they can discover a “spark” that will drive them to a happy and productive life down on earth. Joe is motivated mainly by a desire to avoid the white light and get back to earth somehow (and play that amazing gig he’d been waiting his whole life for), so he assumes the identity of an acclaimed Swedish psychologist and mentors a problem blip known only by her number, 22 ( Tina Fey ). Twenty-two is a blasé cynic who has rejected mentorship from some of the greatest figures in mortal history, including Carl Jung and Abraham Lincoln. Can Joe break the streak and help her find her purpose? Have you ever seen a Pixar film before? Of course. It’s mainly about how things happen in these films, rarely about what happens. 

That having been said, there’s a nifty comic twist about halfway through the film that livens up “Soul” just when it was starting to drag, and it’s best not to spoil it here (even though trailers and ads already have). Suffice to say that 22 eventually does find her spark, although it takes a lot of effort and more than a few wild misadventures to get there; and that Joe reexamines his years on earth as a genial but meek teacher and finds them wanting. He didn’t make as many friends as he should have and was consumed by fears that he traded his childhood dream of becoming a working jazz artist for a more ordinary life. (Joe’s mother, played by Phylicia Rashad , is not supportive of his music.) The downside is that this turns “Soul” into another of a string of animated films (including “ The Princess and the Frog ” and “ Spies in Disguise “) in which a rare Black leading character is transformed into something else for the majority of a film’s running time.

Is this the first midlife crisis movie released by Pixar? Possibly, although Woody in the “ Toy Story ” films seemed to have a touch of that affliction as well. The movie is a bit shaggy and disorganized with its mythology/rules—something that Pixar is usually meticulous about, to the point of being obsessive. I’m not convinced it adds up to all much in the grand scheme by the time the final sequence arrives. The film’s message could be summed up as, “Don’t get so hung up on ambition that you forget to stop and smell the flowers.” A birthday card could’ve told you that. And some of the jokes are a tad DreamWorksy, like the bit where a lost soul returns to earth and realizes that he’s completely wasted his life by working in hedge funds; a ruthless international mega-corporation like Disney— which stuck most of its 20th Century Fox repertory holdings in a “vault” last year  to push people to rent or purchase new Disney product, and that once sued day care centers for putting its characters on murals without permission—has no business lecturing anybody else about the moral emptiness of materialism. 

And yet, “ Cars ” and its various derivatives aside, Pixar has never released a flat-out bad film. And this is a good one: pleasant and clever, with a generous heart, committed voice acting, and some of the kookiest images in Pixar history (including a ghostly, pink, land-bound pirate vessel belonging to a “mystic without borders,” with tie-died sails, a peace symbol anchor, and Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” blasting on a continuous loop). The company has been entrenched at the center of popular culture for decades, its reputation fortified by animated features that blend innovative design and graphics, lively physical and verbal comedy, impeccably staged action, and a sensibility that one of my old college film textbooks called “sprezzatura”—described in Baldassare Castiglione’s 1528 The Book of the Courtier  as ” … a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art, and make whatever one does or says seem to be without effort, and almost without any thought about it.” In other words, Pixar makes it all look easy, even when hundreds of people worked on the project long enough to justify a “production babies” section of the end credits.

Despite feeling like rather minor Pixar overall, “Soul” will prove to be of historical interest because, despite the transformation issue, and when it isn’t getting wrapped up in goofy afterlife shenanigans, it’s the most unapologetically Black Pixar project yet released. Its portrayal of jazz is not only accurate in terms of its soundtrack of classic cuts and depiction of performance (the piano and trumpet playing is as correct as anything in Spike Lee’s “ Mo' Better Blues “) but also its wider cultural context. 

In a flashback, Joe’s dad, who introduced him to jazz, describes the music as one of the greatest African-American contributions to world culture. There are many other touches in the film that testify to the story’s anchoring in an experience beyond the white, middle-class suburban norms that Pixar embraces by default. There’s even a visit to a Black barbershop showcasing an array of male hairstyles; a joke about the difficulty of a Black man hailing a taxi in New York City (“This would be hard even if I wasn’t wearing a hospital gown!”); and a reference to Charles Drew, a Black physician credited with pioneering the blood transfusion. This distinction gives weight to lines that might not have registered in a Pixar film with white protagonists, such as 22’s quip, “You can’t crush a soul here. That’s what life on earth is for.”

Available on Disney+ on December 25.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• Jamie Foxx as Joe Gardner (voice)
• Tina Fey as 22 (voice)
• Ahmir-Khalib Thompson as Curly (voice)
• Phylicia Rashād as Libba Gardner (voice)
• Daveed Diggs as Paul (voice)
• John Ratzenberger as (voice)
• Richard Ayoade as Jerry (voice)
• Graham Norton as Moonwind (voice)
• Rachel House as Terry (voice)
• Alice Braga as Jerry (voice)
• Angela Bassett as Dorothea
• Atticus Ross
• Trent Reznor

Cinematographer

• Ian Megibben
• Matt Aspbury

Composer (jazz compositions and arrangements by)

• Jon Batiste

Co-Director

• Kemp Powers

Writer (story and screenplay by)

• Pete Docter
• Kevin Nolting

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Story Analysis Case Study: Pixar’s Soul

Write screenplays that get noticed and open doors.

Start with my 3-part email series: "The 3 Essential, Fundamental, Don't-Mess-These-Up Screenwriting Rules." After that, you'll get a weekly dose of pro screenwriting tips and industry insights that'll help you get an edge over the competition.

This week we’re taking a close look at the recent Pixar movie Soul to find out what makes this story tick.

What is Soul all about?

Soul is a 2020 Pixar / Disney animated feature, written by Pete Docter & Mike Jones & Kemp Powers. It’s directed by Pete Docter and co-directed by Kemp Powers. And it’s now nominated for the Academy Award for best Animated Feature Film.

The story follows a middle school music teacher named Joe Gardner, who seeks to reunite his soul and his body after they are accidentally separated, just before his big break as a jazz musician.

Let’s take a look at how the screenplay for  Soul is put together. We’ll use some of the tools we might use while breaking our own stories so you can see these tools aren’t just a way to analyze an existing story, but useful for figuring out a story you’re trying to create, as well.

1: Clarity Statement

Movies tend to be about one person’s attempt to accomplish one thing and the transformative experience that is for them. That’s really the core of the story . So it’s a good place to start in order to get very clear on what this thing is that you’re trying to build.

For  Soul , a basic description is:

It’s about a jazz musician trying to reunite his soul to his body.

Simple, right? Yet that basic description tells us what the movie is essentially about . While it doesn’t go into detail ( and it’s not supposed to ), it still gives us a sense of the main conflict and we know what we can expect to see in the movie.

We can then use this simple sentence to find the organic structure of the story:

In Act 1 the goal is created. In Act 2 the goal is pursued. In Act 3 the pursuit of the goal is resolved – the goal is achieved or not.

In Act 1, we see how jazz musician Joe’s soul becomes separated from his body. In Act 2, we see Joe try to reunite his soul with his body. In Act 3, we see whether Joe reunites his soul with his body, and how he does it.

We still have a lot to figure out, including specifically how each of these big swaths of story play out. But for now, this tells you what needs to happen in each of the main parts of the screenplay. This is the structure of your story in very broad strokes.

And I say this often but that’s because it’s true: this all might look too simple to be useful, but don’t dismiss it so quickly. These simple, basic steps will get your story started on the right foot so you don’t end up with major issues later.

2: Matching plot to character

Character arc and plot need to have a cause-and-effect relationship in order to feel believable and organic. Thinking about character arc can also help us identify theme, since they’re so closely related.

In  Soul , Joe is a jazz musician who is obsessed with getting his big shot. He believes his music is his purpose in life and the only thing that makes his life worth living.

Which, the movie posits, is an unhealthy way to live. Joe’s missing out on living life to its fullest because he thinks his life will really start once he “makes it.”

So he’s a guy who needs to learn that lesson – how to appreciate and enjoy life fully. To stop and smell the roses. And the plot of  Soul  pairs Joe with 22, a soul who is brand new to Earth and the pleasures of living, and is able to take it all in without any baggage ( or obsession ). The plot of the movie forces Joe to work with 22 in order to get his own soul back. And seeing life through 22’s eyes causes Joe to learn the lesson he needs in order to be a happier, healthier person.

That’s  the type of relationship you want your plot and protagonist to have . Plot events act on a character and force change. The changing character makes choices that drive plot direction.

When plot and character are designed to intertwine effectively, it makes the story feel more meaningful because we can see how those elements are working on each other and effecting change.

3: Major plot points

The major plot points give definition to the big shape of your story. They each have a specific purpose to fulfill , and they work together to create the exciting, emotional ride of the story.

And you can see how the plot points relate directly back to that basic description in the clarity statement. It’s something to remember as you’re figuring out your own story. You’re not reinventing the wheel at each development step. You’re using what you already have to learn more about the story, to move forward simply by getting more and more granular.

The  major plot points  in  Soul :

• Inciting Incident:  Joe falls into a manhole and finds himself being transported to the Great Beyond.
• Break into Act 2:  Joe makes a deal with new soul 22 to work together to activate 22’s Earth Pass, which 22 will then give to Joe so he can resume living.
• Midpoint:  Joe and 22 learn what they need to do to get Joe back into his body and get a ticking clock for when it can happen. Meanwhile, the accountant for the Great Beyond vows to bring Joe’s soul back where it belongs.
• Break into Act 3: Joe recommits to his goal of getting his shot on stage that night, and he and 22 set off to get Joe the suit he needs in order to do so.
• Climax: Joe helps 22 reclaim his spark and prepare to live life on Earth, forgoing his own second chance and proving that Joe has learned his lesson about what it really means to live.

4: Story template chart

As mentioned last week, this chart gives us a simple way to look at a whole story and see if all of the parts are working together:

And here it is for our  Soul  example:

( And here’s a PDF version, in case you want to take a closer look. )

You’ll notice in  Soul , the protagonist isn’t ready to embrace the lesson learned at the Break into Act 3 ( as compared to last week’s Bridesmaids example ). And that’s perfectly okay.

Act 3 is about resolution, of both the plot and the character arc. So in any case, we’ll see the protagonist struggling to fully embrace the thematic lesson in Act 3 in order to resolve the character arc. But that struggle may look different for different characters and different stories.

Reading screenplays to learn screenwriting

A lot of people talk about how important it is for aspiring screenwriters to read screenplays. Good advice, but incomplete. Reading passively won’t teach you much.  If you really want to learn by reading, you have to read to learn . That means reading analytically, examining and processing what you’re consuming. Always asking yourself, “ Does it work? If so, how? If not, why not – what’s missing? ”

Even if you’re not a fan of animated movies,  Soul  is a screenplay worth reading and analyzing. ( And here it is, if you’d like to do your own case study. ) As you read, remember to ask yourself what’s working ( or not ) and how the effect is achieved.

( Note: I’m planning to do more script and movie analysis articles as I prepare for something cool I’ll be announcing in a few weeks. So let me know which movies you’d like to see broken down like this and look for more case studies coming your way. )

Like it? Share it!

I am so grateful I hired Naomi to review my screenplay.  Her notes are constructive, clear and encouraging . She honed in on plot, character and theme. She found a big flaw in my script and  presented a tactical approach on how to solve the problem . And she also delivered her feedback in prompt fashion. Yes, Naomi knows the science of story, and  I would recommend her to any storyteller who wants to take their material to a higher level.

Down The Hobbit Hole Blog

7 Lessons from Soul + Discussion Questions and Parent Review

7 Lessons from Soul + Soul Discussion Questions written by the Elf and the Ent . This post contains affiliate links, you can find out more on our policies page or in the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog.

Know Before You Watch the movie Soul

Quick summary of the movie soul:, -is soul appropriate-, -plot/story of the movie soul-, -character development in soul-, soul discussion questions, final thoughts.

Movie : Soul Rating : PG Run time : 1 hr. 30 mins. Genre : Family, Comedy Age suggested : 5 and up Release Date : December 25th, 2020 Where to Stream It? : As of December 25th, it is streaming exclusively to Disney Plus subscribers at no additional cost. Themes : Purpose, Drive, Beauty of Life and Music Warnings : Main plot revolves around a character who has died, slight toilet and crude humor, minimal scary images. And, as with any Pixar/Disney movie, have those tissues handy.

Joe Gardener is passionate about Jazz but not as excited about his teaching gig. He is just about to fulfill his lifelong dream when something goes terribly wrong and he ends up in the Soul world. He’s got to figure out how to help someone else as well as himself before he can get back to earth.

While the movie goes to incredibly deep and sometimes confusing depths in it’s plot, it’s a beautiful watch for the whole family! This movie is one that will naturally spark great conversations about your passions, differences, dreams, and hopefully even about your Creator.

Keep reading for our parent review of soul and 7 lessons from soul…

Parent Review of Soul *Minimal Spoilers*

Besides a couple of crude (but fairly innocent) jokes, there isn’t much inappropriate in the movie. The movie does deal a lot with the concept of death and the afterlife, so be prepared to discuss this with your kids. There are a few image that might be a little scary for younger viewers- namely the lost souls- , but not nearly as scary as in most Disney/Pixar movies. And while younger viewers might be easily bored by the movie, I would not say that it’s inappropriate or very scary.

You can also get plushies for Joe here and 22 here !

The Story of Soul goes through several different twists and turns while having a consistent through line that lasts the entire movie. It may get a little complicated for younger viewers as it goes in and out of the Soul world. This is compensated for by the art style and design as the people and surroundings look very different in each world, which makes it a little easier to follow. Both styles are absolutely fantastic, balancing very well between cartoon and realism. (I loved this article by Crosswalk that talks about the fact that you might not be able to answer all of your or your kids questions about the plot of the movie- but there is still a TON to discuss!

Joe’s journey through the afterlife is absolutely wonderful. The plot follows him as he must learn what it truly means to live while also mentoring a being who has never understood why anyone would ever want to live on earth. Although not quite as emotional as other Pixar movies (which makes it more appropriate for whole family viewing), Soul is filled with just as much heart and passion. The plot is boldly complex, but not one that lost my kids or myself in the process.

Joe and 22 are polar opposites at the beginning of the movie, and this provides a great backdrop for everything they go through. All of the characters, including the side ones, add so much depth to their respective worlds. The beings who are in charge of the soul world come of as completely different creatures than humans while still showing all the human like qualities. Perhaps the most heartbreaking characters are the “lost souls” because unfortunately they can be the most relatable for adults.

During a year when so much racism has been brought out into the sunlight, it’s great to see a leading family that’s Black and positive, happy, Black life stories. As a teacher, I really cannot stress the depth and importance of representation. It really does matter to kids. Not only does the movie do it well onscreen, but the cast and movie makers are diverse as well- and it’s wonderful!

Overall, the characters in Soul make for a great movie that simultaneously drags adults into the plot while remaining goofy and silly enough for the younger viewers.

Keep reading for our Lessons from Soul and Soul discussion questions.

7 Lessons from Soul **SPOILERS Beyond This Point**

Another line to tell you that there are SPOILERS ahead!!

1) It’s the little things which make life beautiful

From the taste of pizza to the leaves of trees, there are so many things in our life that we really do find lovely that we have stopped appreciating. It is important to be intentional about taking the time to rediscover these things.

2) There’s always time to find your spark

22 shows us that there is always time to find your spark. She seemingly has been in the soul world for several millennia and simply never found her spark for life. Her impressive mentor list is so much fun. But she finds out that there is still time for her.

3) Life is worth living

Although life can have many setbacks and difficulties, it is also filled with potential, love, beauty and glory. We have to pay attention and look for it. At the end of film, Joe doesn’t exactly know what he wants to do with his life, but he does know one thing: he wants to live his life.

**I’d like to note here as well that I think the film did a good job bringing up things that keep us stuck in life, like depression, in a kid friendly, but also responsible way. The stuck, or lost, souls in the movie can’t just shake off whatever is literally plaguing them. They have to have help. And reader, if you’re stuck, now is the time to ask for help from a counselor or doctor- even reaching out to a trusted mentor or friend!**

4) Our different passions make us and life beautiful.

There is no one thing that gives everyone a spark, or that brings you to the plane between eternity and earth. And we don’t always understand each others.

Positive representation of diverse characters is important. I love that the lead in this movie was an Arts centric Black man with a cast of strong supportive females behind him. And that the secondary lead was voiced my a strong female. (There is also room her to discuss gender fluidity and that people all have souls and are all just people if it’s something you want to dive into with your kids after viewing.)

5) Our positive and negative words IMPACT people.

Joe’s mothers words stick with him in ways she didn’t intend. When he expresses that, there’s a beautiful moment of positive impact as well. Students talk about how much Joe has impacted their lives, even helping them get through school. The leaders of the souls are constantly working to inspire. And, in one of the more heartbreaking scenes, we see the words of past mentors that 22 has joked about as she really feels them- they torment her.

One of life’s most important lessons. Your life matters, and how you use your life and your words impacts others in ways you will never fully know.

6) You and your life are more than your spark and purpose.

Your spark and those moments of feeling your purpose are important and amazing. But life is about a lot more than those plateaus. Joe’s afraid that he’s wasted his life but when he looks back, he sees how beautiful and wonderful his life has been. And he’s been given the chance to appreciate all those little moments again.

There are lots of different things that can make us happy and help us bring joy to the world. Life is amazing! I would discuss with my kids again how God made each of us unique.

7) Achieving a dream, or starting a new year, doesn’t fix your life.

When one of the characters finally reaches what they’ve been wanting to get to- it’s not as fulfilling as they were expecting. It reminds me of Tangled when Rapunzel finally gets to see the lanterns fill up the night sky. Something she’s wanted for years. But it doesn’t solve her problems and now that she’s achieved her dream, what’s left? She enjoyed it, took stock of what was important, (got kidnapped again) and started to dream again. What a marvelous lesson (besides the kidnapping drama) as we go into a year that we’re collectively putting so much weight on. We can hope for a lot of wonderful, life-changing, positive moments in 2021- but it’s not going to heal all our underlying wounds by itself.

What did you take from this movie?! Keep reading for our Soul Discussion questions!

• Who was your favorite character in the movie and why?
• Why do you think God give us different personalities when we’re born?
• People have different things that allow them to enter the Soul world momentarily. What brings you enough happiness to enter that in between plane in the Soul world?
• What is something simple in life that you underappreciate? (If younger kids: what things do you like that you do everyday?)
• 22 finds herself surrounded by negative comments that were made to her. How does she overcome this negativity? How do you or can you overcome negativity?
• Who are you a positive voice for? Who can you be a positive voice for in the future?
• What is something you can appreciate in life now more than before after seeing this movie?
• What is the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?
• What is one of your dreams that you would like to accomplish?
• What’s something that God’s gifted you with that feels like one of your sparks?

While it would have been amazing to see on the big screen, I can’t think of a better movie to watch at home with your whole family before the start of the new year. We would highly encourage you to watch this one WITH your kids and take some time to talk about your sparks and discuss happy moments and dreams together afterwards. You may no be able to answer every question about the story or plot- but don’t miss the amazing opportunity this movie provides us in talking about how amazing life and people are.

Thanks for checking out our Lessons from Soul and Soul Discussion Questions. Before you go- check out these other posts :

– Parent review of Coco : A little boy with a love of music finds himself celebrating Dia De Muertes in an unexpecting way.

– 5 Lessons from Frozen 2 : the sequel to Disney’s big hit that dives further into the fantastical world of Arendelle

– 3 Lessons From Trolls: World Tour : The worlds of music collide as rock music tries to take over all of the Troll worlds

– 3 Lessons from Spies in Disguise : Tom Holland and Will Smith team up in this great movie about a bumbling engineering genius and world renowned spy.

Down The Hobbit Hole Blog and this Soul discussion questions, Lessons from Soul and Soul review post uses affiliate links, we only link products we think you’ll like and you are never charged extra for them. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. We also use cookies to gather analytics and present advertisements. This allows us to keep writing discussion questions and telling ridiculous dad jokes.

31 thoughts on “7 Lessons from Soul + Discussion Questions and Parent Review”

I love reading your reviews, and this parent review for Soul and the lessons from the movie are terrific. I only have so much time to watch movies. This looks very worthwhile!

This Soul Parent Review sounds quite interesting. It is good to know that it is appropriate for children. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for your review! I have been thinking of watching this movie, and now I feel like I really want to! 🙂

I really enjoyed reading your review. We plan to watch Soul tomorrow night since it will be our last day having Disney= and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews about this movie so I’m hoping we all enjoy it.

thanks for sharing. I had not been interested in seeing the movie but maybe I’ll take a peek.

p.s. great discussion questions

Thanks so much for the compliment! I wasn’t super excited about watching it at first, but I’m so glad I did! Hope you enjoy it!

Soul is one of my favorite animated movies of the past 10 years. I watched it as soon as it came out on Disney+, and it blew me away. There really is a lot to be learned from it.

I agree! Definitely deserves to be on top 10 lists! Thanks for stopping by and commenting 🙂

My three kids AND my husband and I all loved this movie. Of course, they kids loved it for all the reasons that kids normally love Pixar movies, but my husband and I actually took quite a lot away from its message, too.

Yes!! So many good messages!! I’m so glad that you all enjoyed it!! 🙂

One of the reasons I love Soul so much is that it teaches such valuable lessons to both children and adults. Kids aren’t the only ones who need refreshers on so many parts of life.

That’s so true!! Kid’s definitely are not the only ones who can take away some great lessons from the movie. It reminded me of so many things, but especially to remember to value the things I think are mundane.

I haven’t seen Soul yet, but it sounds like it deals with some complex themes while still being entertaining for the kids. I love your discussion guide for after the film!

It really does deal with a lot while also being super entertaining! Thanks for the complement- hope it’s useful!

We have seen Soul three times since it came out. I love the message and the delivery. It was perfect!

We agree! So glad you loved it too!

A lot of people seems to be impressed with Disney Plus and it’s content, and I have been a bit… naah, not right now, my kid dont need more movies, but you’ve got a great way of watching with the kids 🙂 I loved reading your review!

That absolutely makes sense! We understand that! It is wonderful to watch some of them with the kids. Thanks so much for the compliment and for stopping by to comment 🙂

I’ve seen so many mixed reviews on the film. But I do also think it’s a great way to start discussions on death and the afterlife. There’s not another film like it, so I think that’s why many people are undecided on watching.

That makes sense! It is such a great way to discuss big life topics for sure!

I really enjoyed watching this with my daughter. It is nice to watch a movie that has so many wonderful messages!

I absolutely agree! Thanks for commenting 🙂

It sounds really interesting and I enjoy a good comedy these days at home. Thanks for letting us know about this and I will bookmark this one for the weekend 🙂 Knycx Journeying

I hope that you get to watch it and enjoy it! Thanks for stopping by

That was a super interesting review of the movie Soul. I think I will give it a shot with my girlfriend.

Thanks for the compliment. I hope that you get to watch it and enjoy it!

I have never seen movie Soul, but I love family comedies. Thanks for this review!

Thanks for stopping by!! It really is a great movie for the whole family.

Many people recommended me to watch this animated movie. And I hear that it’s truly great. Now you confirm that again in your post. Ok, I will go to the cinema tomorrow for this.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoy the movie!!

I loved reading your review. So well-executed… Although I rarely watch movies these days but I’ll take a peek.

Comments are closed.

‘Soul’ Review: From the Minds Behind ‘Inside Out’ Comes an Even Deeper Look at What Makes People Tick

Pixar gives audiences a fresh way to think about the dimension that defines their personality, while broadening its cultural horizons to feature the studio's first predominantly Black cast.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Where do people get their personalities? Do parents play a part, or are such things somehow determined before birth? For centuries, doctors of psychology, doctors of philosophy and doctors of theology have contributed their thoughts on the subject, but the latest breakthrough comes from another kind of doctor entirely: Pete Docter , the big-idea Pixar brain behind outside-the-box toons “Inside Out” and “Up,” who takes a look deep inside and comes up with another intuitive, easy-to-embrace metaphor for — dare I say it — the meaning of life.

The result is “ Soul ,” a whimsical, musical and boldly metaphysical dramedy about what makes each and everybody tick, featuring a cast of characters who don’t have bodies at all. “Soul” opens with the death of its down-on-his-luck hero, middle school band teacher Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a frustrated pianist who aces a jazz band audition, then steps out into the street, where he narrowly avoids being smushed by construction workers and crushed by an oncoming car, only to fall through a manhole to his untimely end.

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This is not at all where one expects a kids movie to begin. Not even “Bambi” went so far as to kill its main character before the opening credits. But then, “Soul” plays hardly anything by the rules. Frankly, this may not be a kids movie at all, although releasing directly to Disney Plus subscription service on Dec. 25 (amid COVID-19’s second wave) suggests the studio is treating it as such. Joe’s death isn’t scary, but it asks young audiences to acknowledge the issue of mortality in a way that few films dare. And then, it proceeds to bend — although “shape” might be a more accurate word — their understanding of what happens before and after people’s lives on Earth.

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Just before he bites the dust, Joe lands his big break, earning a shot to play with jazz legend Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett) at the Half Note club. Nearly all his life, Joe has wanted nothing more than to be a musician. He’s good, too, given the improvisations we’re privy to here — in class, in rehearsal and later, in the solitude of his own apartment. So it’s not surprising that he might be alarmed to find himself on a conveyor belt through the Great Beyond, the void-like zone Docter and production designer Steve Pilcher have imagined late souls enter just before they are zapped into oblivion.

Again, this sequence could have been intimidating for young viewers — or old ones, for that matter — though the movie treats it lightly, allowing Joe (who’s the only soul with second thoughts about the afterlife) to fall off the escalator and plunge through several dimensions to the Great Before, a more Elysian Fields-ian place with lilac skies and periwinkle grass where giggly, vaguely Casper the Friendly Ghost-like souls are prepped for Earth.

It’s an awe-inspiring answer to an impossible challenge: How to animate the not-yet-animate? But this is a Pixar movie, so it’s no surprise that the team opts to cutesify the abstract idea of a pre-corporeal self, giving each soul googly eyes and a pure glow. What we see are adorable amorphous blobs with trippy chromatic aberration around the edges — color fringing that suggests the virtual lenses can barely capture their elusive luminosity (and the opposite of old-school animation, where characters were “contained” by thick black lines).

There are rules for this realm, which recall the ingenious way Docter translated the notion of human emotion into clean cartoon terms with “Inside Out.” Nascent souls appear here and are guided along by mentors — those who have already lived and seem keen to pass their passions along to the next generation. Once new souls discover their “spark,” they’re given an entry pass to Earth, where they’re presumably assigned to an infant body. (It’s a far more sophisticated explanation of where babies come from than the delivery storks of “Dumbo” — or Pixar’s own “Partly Cloudy” short.)

That’s where Docter’s groundbreaking theory of where people get their personalities factors in: Some components are imprinted at the “You Seminar” (another, more corporate-sounding name for the Great Before), and others are discovered with a little helpful guidance from the older souls. The model isn’t perfect, but there’s a certain brilliance in encouraging kids to identify what excites them in life. One can imagine “Soul” leading to early “eureka” moments in some viewers. Still, the film seems better suited to adult audiences, the way Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” or Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” resonates differently with a little life experience.

Joe wants to get back to the body that (we learn) is still hooked up to life support. But he’s mistaken for a mentor and randomly assigned to a “soul mate,” No. 22 (Tina Fey), a misfit who’s been around for ages and who seems perfectly content never to “get a life.” In fact, 22 prefers it in the Great Before, where countless, more accomplished mentors than Joe — from Abraham Lincoln to Mother Theresa — have tried (and failed) to find her spark. But the overseers — a trio of classic UPA-style line drawings (Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade and Wes Studi), each named Jerry — are easygoing enough to let these two give it a go, and before long, they find a loophole that lands them both on earth.

It’s going to be hard for “Soul” audiences to keep this next twist a secret, but for the sake of the review, let it be a surprise how the pair manifest on earth. Joe’s desperate to get back to that jazz club, while 22 would give anything not to be dragged along on his single-minded — and clearly selfish — mission to make his jazz dreams come true. (She far prefers her comfortable nonexistence to the assault of overwhelming noises and smells of New York City.) But now that she is alive, 22 starts to realize that it’s not as bad as she imagined.

That’s not a message kids need to hear, though there is surely no shortage of adults out there who wish they’d “never been born at all,” and “Soul” has the generous, big-hearted quality of so many Pixar movies before it that makes even a mediocre life seem like something to be appreciated. Docter and co-writers Mike Jones and Kemp Powers (the latter also co-directed) have filled the back half of the film with scenes that uplift and set receptive souls a-tingling.

First, there’s the barbershop, where Joe comes to realize that his obsession with music has interfered with his ability to make meaningful friendships. There’s the face-to-face with tough-love mom Libba (Phylicia Rashad) that puts some of his parental issues in perspective. And there’s the truly magical moment when Joe sits down at his piano and just starts playing, drifting off into what the movie refers to as “The Zone.” As the sage and slightly kooky-sounding British talkshow host Graham Norton puts it, in character as a mystic named Moonwind, “When joy becomes an obsession, one becomes disconnected from life.”

Of all the movie’s gambles — those big risks that might have caused this dazzling house of cards to collapse upon itself — the most unexpected is Pixar vet Docter telling fellow adults that there’s such a thing as being too focused on one’s dreams. Here’s a lesson coming from a studio where artists notoriously sacrifice their private lives to fulfill their passions, where long hours and absolute focus are expected of their employees. And then Docter goes and pushes his luck one step further with a life lesson hardly any family movie dares acknowledge: Sometimes, achieving your dream can leave you feeling emptier than you did before.

Like it or not, that’s a truth worth telling — a sincere, dark-night-of-the-“Soul” revelation —and one that feels far more radical than the long-overdue decision to center this film on a predominantly Black cast. Pixar’s been way behind the diversity curve for far too long: From its inception, the company has been a boys club in which the core team of (bright) white guys have taken turns directing movies about white characters: white toys, white fish, white cars, white ideas. They’ve made room to mentor, but have been slow to diversify their characters and stories onscreen.

And now this. It will be up to audiences of color to decide whether this exceptional film satisfies Pixar’s long void of near total nonrepresentation. “Coco” was a start, though this feels like a breakthrough: a cartoon where the hero could be any race, and his creators opted to project their imaginations beyond the mirror. And though it’s almost impossible to reverse-engineer who did what in a co-directing situation, one has to imagine that some of the film’s cultural perspective owes to co-director Powers (whose play, “One Night in Miami,” also reaches screen this fall). Judging by Mr. Mittens, the movie’s feline sidekick, the crew was light on cat lovers.

In any case, the unsung hero here — the heart of “Soul,” if you will — can be found in the music. From Betty Boop to the Pink Panther, jazz has shaped and inspired the medium of animation (especially in its more avant garde experiments). Pixar rekindles that connection, enlisting Jon Batiste to create the jazz portion of the score — from the fleet-fingered, Keith Jarrett-like improvisations Joe performs to the vibe of city life itself — while Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross delivered the New Agey sound of the before- and after-life.

It all blends together beautifully, a marriage of Pixar’s square, safe, feel-good sensibility with what could be described as the “real world” — and one that, much as “Inside Out” anthropomorphized the mind, will leave audiences young and old imagining their own souls as glowing idiosyncratic cartoon characters. And that’s just what the Docter ordered.

Reviewed online, Los Angeles, Nov. 22, 2020. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 100 MIN.

• Production: (Animated) A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Disney presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios production. Producer: Dana Murray. Executive producers: Dan Scanlon, Kiri Hart.
• Crew: Director: Pete Docter. Co-director: Kemp Powers. Screenplay, story: Pete Docter, Mike Jones, Kemp Powers. Editor: Kevin Nolting. Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross. Jazz compositions and arrangements: Jon Batiste.
• With: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad, Donnell Rawlings, Ahmir-Khalib Thompson aka Questlove, Angela Bassett, Cora Champommier, Margo Hall, Daveed Diggs, Rhodessa Jones, Wes Studi.

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Pixar's 'Soul’ Offers a Thesis on the Meaning of Life, and It’s a Pretty Good One

Dir. pete docter––4.5 stars.

There are technically no rules against an animated film winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. In the 93-year history of the Oscars, however, only three have ever received a nomination (“Beauty and the Beast,” “Up,” and “Toy Story 3”), and none have ever won. When “Wall-E” wasn’t nominated in 2008, critics began to raise questions about whether the existence of the separate “Best Animated Feature” category was inherently harmful — an implicitly degrading statement that animated films must be judged by different standards than live-action ones.

This, in some ways, is besides the point; to delve into a discussion of the Academy’s inner machinations would probably make this review about 20 times longer. But the “Best Animated Feature” category is, in many ways, symptomatic of the way many Americans view animation: as a genre, rather than as a medium. The way we associate animation with fart jokes and cheesy endings makes it difficult to think broader, to produce something mature and thoughtful like “Spirited Away” or “Your Name” — leaving us to define animated movies as “just for kids”

Pixar’s “Soul,” however, blows this definition out of the water.

The film follows Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a middle-school band teacher who’s always dreamed of being a professional jazz pianist. On the day he finally gets his big break — literally moments after being offered the chance to play with one of the jazz greats — he falls into an open manhole and, well, dies.

What follows is a bit less realistic. Instead of proceeding to The Great Beyond like all the other souls, Joe (now an ethereal, glowing, light teal-colored soul) flees to The Great Before — the fantastical celestial plane where new souls get their personalities before proceeding to Earth. There, he meets 22 (Tina Fey), a petulant, jaded new soul who’s not all that jazzed about going to Earth, and together, they devise a plan to return Joe to his earthly body in time for his big gig.

Much like in “Inside Out” (another brainchild of director and Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter), the far-fetched premise of “Soul” is balanced by how grounded it is in the human condition. It’s okay, for instance, that Joe’s soul inhabits a therapy cat named Mr. Mittens for a good chunk of the second act, because this ultimately allows 22 to recognize the true meaning of life on Earth. And the slapstick is kept to a minimum — replaced with humor that is either very clever or uncannily mature (“Can’t crush a soul here,” 22 says as a building collapses onto a group of new souls in The Great Before. “That’s what life on Earth is for”).

The astral landscapes of The Great Before are just as lush, beautiful, and imaginative as Riley’s mind in “Inside Out.” Purple “trees” are scattered on hills of turquoise “grass” in this land of blue-green pastels and incoherent, fuzzy forms — making for a world that is dream-like in the most literal sense of the word. Particularly striking are the Counselors: the kind, gentle giants that guide new souls through The Great Before. The way they are animated to look both two-dimensional and three-dimensional (sort of like a Picasso portrait brought to life) is visually stunning: a refreshing take on CG animation from the studio that pioneered the craft.

The other half of the film is set in New York, a city that Pixar managed to make just as visually interesting as a literal astral plane. Docter achieves a frenetic, energized depiction of the city that never sleeps and the diverse people it comprises, and everything about the film — from the cinematography to the crowds animation — imbibes Joe’s New York with gritty authenticity. The contrast in scoring, too — between composer Jon Batiste’s jazzy, piano-heavy New York and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ (the duo behind “Mank” and “The Social Network”) ethereal, airy underscore to The Great Before — does more than its fair share of narrative and emotional heavy lifting.

And as beautiful as the animation and music are, the real soul (pun intended) of the film lies in its writing. It does, for the most part, follow the typical Pixar story beats, but the way it builds to its final point is masterful: scattering seemingly insignificant plot points throughout the second act, shepherding an ostensibly well-adjusted protagonist through a series of adventures, and having him discover the flaw in his thinking just as the audience does — a puzzle that the viewer assembles right alongside Joe.

The final act is a masterclass in storytelling: in particular, a four-minute sequence near the end manages to — wordlessly, sublimely, poignantly — capture the beauty of the human condition. It is an ending that feels earned, one that will not only leave the viewer (as most good films do) reflecting on their own life, but also (as not many animated films do) wondering if their child can fully grasp its meaning.

“Soul” offers a thesis on the meaning of human life — a difficult question to answer in a 200-page philosophy dissertation, much less a 104-minute animated film. And it does so with all the beauty, detail, and imagination that audiences have come to expect from Pixar. It is a good animated film (indeed, probably an Oscar-worthy one), but more importantly, it is a good film, period. And it is films like “Soul” that prove that animation isn’t just as good as live-action, but — quite often — better.

Pixar's "Soul" is available to stream on Disney+ beginning on Dec. 25.

—Staff writer Kalos K. Chu can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter @kaloschu .

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Soul 2020 Movie Guide: Questions + Activities Puzzles + Answers

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

2 April 2024

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Soul is an innovative and thought-provoking film that navigates the realms of jazz music, the pursuit of one’s passions, and existential questions about life’s purposes and the essence of the soul.

This product includes:

Questions 30 Short Questions and 30 Multiple Choice Questions to gauge understanding and encourage thoughtful discussion.

Varied activities a crossword puzzle and word search centered around key vocabulary from the movie; a compare and contrast exercise, a Drawing Activity that gives students the opportunity to express their interpretation to depict their own version, and a movie review assignment to cultivate critical thinking and personal insight.

An Answer Key for all questions and activities.

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Soul Movie Questions with ANSWERS | Soul MOVIE GUIDE Worksheet (2020) | Disney

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Description.

Soul movie questions (released 2020) help keep students engaged throughout the film by providing 25 questions (plus 3 critical thinking questions at the end) for them to answer to keep them on track. The Soul Movie worksheet comes with a key that has suggested answers provided at the end.

The Soul Movie Guide follows along as Joe who is a middle-school band teacher whose life hasn't quite gone the way he expected finds his true passion jazz. But when he travels to another realm to help someone find their passion, he soon discovers what it means to have soul.

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THE MOVIE CULTURE

Soul Movie Review & Film Summary: Pixar At Its Best

Soul, produced by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures, is an American animated comedy-drama film. The film stars the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, Daveed Diggs, Richard Ayoade and Angela Bassett and is directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Kemp Powers, and written by Docter, Powers and Mike Jones.

A middle school music teacher named Joe Gardner follows the plot, who attempts to reunite his soul and body after being mistakenly split, just before he got his break.

Soul Movie Voice Cast

• Jamie Foxx as Joe Gardner, a passionate jazz pianist and music teacher whose soul gets separated from his body after an accident.
• Tina Fey as 22, a soul trapped in the Great Before with a dim view of life.
• Questlove as Curley, a drummer in Dorothea Williams’ band. He is also a former student of Joe’s and was taught how to drum by him.
• Phylicia Rashad as Libba Gardner, Joe’s mother.
• Daveed Diggs as Paul, Joe’s neighborhood nemesis.
• Angela Bassett as Dorothea Williams, a respected jazz musician and saxophone player.
• Graham Norton as Moonwind, a spiritual sign twirler.
• Rachel House as Terry, a soul counter in the Great Beyond.
• Richard Ayoade, Alice Braga, Wes Studi, Fortune Feimster and Zenobia Shroff as soul counselors in the Great Before who are all named Jerry.
• Donnell Rawlings as Dez, Joe’s barber.
• June Squibb as Gerel.
• Esther Chae as Miho, a bassist in Williams’ band.

Additionally, Cody Chesnutt voices a singer with a guitar. Cora Champommier, Margo Hall, Rhodessa Jones, Sakina Jaffrey, Calum Grant, Laura Mooney, Peggy Flood, Ochuwa Oghie, Jeannie Tirado, and Cathy Cavadini provide the voices of Connie, Melba, Lulu, Doctor, Hedge Fund Manager, Therapy Cat Lady, Marge, Dancerstar, Principal Arrayo and Dreamerwind.

Soul Movie Plot

Joe Gardner, a middle school music teacher, feels stuck in life and unfulfilled at his job. He dreams of a career in jazz, to which his mother, Libba, objects. By chance, his former student Curly informs him of an opening in the band of jazz legend Dorothea Williams. Joe impresses Dorothea with his piano playing and is offered the job on the spot. As Joe happily heads off to prepare for his first performance later that night, he falls down a manhole. And things started to change for him since then. 

Soul Movie Review

Pixar had us again! Soul is such a good family movie, after ‘Inside Out’ Soul is a film you must watch, because its very inspiring and unique. This film , you know just wakes your soul up, it tells you so many things you want to know or the things you already know but you thought you didn’t  know , okay lol sorry to make you trip.

But yeah, this film will inspire you to live and love your life and do things not because you were born to do it but because you WANT to do it and that you SHOULD do it to satisfy yourself the inner you, your soul.

Joe Gardner who teaches music to middle schoolers for part time has been given the full time position but he had other plans , he wants to pursue his career in jazz but his mom didn’t  want that to happen.

Somehow he gets to play in front of legend Dorothea Williams and she offers the job to him on the spot because his piano playing was quite impressive. Later that day he get so excited about playing with her that he falls down a manhole and now is stuck between death and life. 

He gets scared of the “Great Beyond” and tries running away , and that makes him fall all the way back to the “Great Before” where he accidentally becomes a mentor and then is assigned to this soul called 22. This soul , 22, has remained in the Great Before for many years , 22 just doesn’t want to be born on a place called earth and that is why she has been stalling for a long long time!

22 has a badge that is filled with all the traits and once she finds the “spark” she can finally go on earth it’s like a pass for that. So Joe and 22 make a deal on that Joe will help 22 find her spark and then take the badge and go back in his body on earth to finally play with Dorothea Williams. 

They couldn’t find the spark so 22 takes Joe to Moonwind, and they then mess up and are both sent to earth where Joe accidentally enters a Cats body and 22 enters Joe’s body. Here then 22 finally finds her spark but Joe tells her that it’s not hers it’s because she was in his body.

Joe then finally gets into his body back after Terry comes and takes them both back to the Great Before and tells everyone how Joe is cheating on death.

But 22 just gives her pass away to Joe even though she wants to live on earth , it’s because Joe made her think that she doesn’t actually has a purpose but it was all Joe’s body. 

Joe gets into his body after taking the pass, and gets to play with Dorothea but he doesn’t feel any better so he goes back into the Great Before and tells 22 that her soul actually has a purpose and then 22 takes the pass and decides to go back to earth. While Joe is forgiven and given one more chance.

Soul Movie Critical Reception

Critical response to Soul has been “highly positive”, and it has been described as one of Pixar’s “most ambitiously existential” and finest films.

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes , the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 178 reviews, with an average score of 8.40/10. The site’s critics consensus states, “A film as beautiful to contemplate as it is to behold, Soul proves Pixar’s power to deliver outstanding all-ages entertainment remains undimmed.”

According to Metacritic, which compiled 38 reviews and calculated an average score of 85 out of 100, the film received “universal acclaim”. Joe Utichi of Deadline Hollywood called the film “a joy to behold”.

Kaleem Aftab of IndieWire gave the film an A–, calling it a “captivating journey” and writing “Like some of the best jazz compositions, it uses a traditional framework to veer off in many unexpected directions, so that even the inevitable end point feels just right.” 

Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter called the film “peak Pixar” and “miles ahead and sublime in every sense”, and praised the soundtrack.

Jason Solomons of TheWrap said the film “aims admirably high, yet ultimately can’t quite fulfill the scale of its ambitions” but “it pops with colorful visuals and gentle wisdom while the story clips along despite the dizzying height of the concept.”

The Movie Culture Synopsis

Murray said that the film will take audiences “to a world where no one’s ever been … for a long time”, while co-writer/co-director Kemp Powers said that it is “completely different” to Docter’s previous films. Powers also said that the film will answer important questions in “a really fun way”.

Tina Fey also contributed to the screenplay, having helped to write her character’s lines.

This film really does teach you things in a fun way, it will make you laugh and it will take you to places within yourself and make you realize so many things.

Gives strong positive vibes, It is very enjoyable and inspiring. Soul is a must watch film, we would give it a 9/10!!

Soul is available to watch on Disney+ . 

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Leave the World Behind: Ending Explained

Marina Gomberg: Pixar’s ‘Soul’ changed how we view our lives. It might change you, too.

How an 8-year-old and a grown woman found a message worth cherishing from this movie..

Well, Pixar has done it again. Those liars. They say they’re serving up a charming animated film for entertainment, but actually deliver some super subversive life-affirming epiphanies. We saw it with “Inside Out” and we’re seeing it again with their Christmas release of the movie “Soul.”

It’s absolute false advertising.

And I’m 100% here for it. Fool us again, you brilliant artists.

Especially because this time, it changed my wife, Elenor’s perspective on her life and her value in the world.

The film, which I’m not going to explain or review in much detail because that’s what our esteemed film critic Sean Means is for , suggests (spoiler alert) we aren’t necessarily living on Earth because there’s something we have to DO, but we’re here because it’s special just to BE.

*boy-oy-oy-oy-oyng*

Yeah, just something simple.

As a person who’s questioned her value because she isn’t a world-renowned violinist or an Olympic snowboarder, Elenor was absolutely bowled over by this idea.

It took watching it four or so times to get there, because with our active 4 ½-year-old, we mostly see movies in small chunks, so when she made it to the end and pieced it all together, it was like her life made sense.

She is one of those people who has long questioned her value because her interests are more broad and numerous than lend themselves to the singular focus that results in a genius level of mastery. Meaning, she loves so much that she’s too busy being amused and enthralled to dive really super deep into one specific thing.

It’s actually a really charming quality — to be delighted so frequently — and one of the reasons life with her is a series of spectacular discoveries. Her value has always been clear as day for me.

But this generously distributed interest has caused her strife. She has thought her life lacked purpose.

In one of our many conversations since seeing the movie, she said, “The more I think about it, the idea of ‘purpose’ is so silly. It’s really embedded in our thinking and planning as we grow up. What can I be? How can I make money? How can I make a difference? How can I get a good job and be the best at what I do professionally? But it’s the [redacted] spark! The little moments and appreciation of kindness and being present. THAT gives you purpose.”

Wow. Yeah, to see that the way you walk through the world is meaningful when you had previously questioned that is a pretty big deal.

Just some lite life-altering therapy brought on by a children’s movie.

It made me wonder how the film resonated with young ones (given that I assume they’re the primary audience). So, I asked my 8-year-old niece, Cora, her thoughts. After seeing snippets of the film with her 4-year-old brother, she said this was her take on “the meaning of life” (her words not mine).

“Life is a circle that ends in death,” Cora wrote down for me as I plunked away at this column. “But it can be wasted or used. If wasted, it usually is because people want to have a purpose, but do not find one. But if you use your life carefully, you can accomplish some amazing things and discover that life is not about having a purpose; it is about experiencing being and just having a life as an animal or human.”

Um… So, I don’t know if all Pixar-watching kids (and adults) are now emotional savants, but I’m starting to think they might be. Or maybe these movies just tap into who we already are: people who know more, love more and are valued more than we might ever know.

Either way, as the phenomenally executed final song of the movie says, “When you wake up early in the morning / Feeling’ sad like so many of us do / Hum a little soul, make life your goal / And surely something’s got to come to you / And say it’s all right / Say it’s all right.”

Marina Gomberg is a communications professional and lives in Salt Lake City with her wife, Elenor Gomberg, and their son, Harvey. You can reach Marina at [email protected] .

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Soul ending explained: pixar's meaning of life revealed.

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Soul: 14 Easter Eggs & Secret Pixar References

Pixar's soul: 25 best quotes from the movie, 10 controversial star wars plots where the audience missed the point.

• 22's spark is simply an appreciation for living, as shown by her excitement for the little things on Earth.
• Joe's life on Earth will be different after his time in the afterlife, focusing on what makes him and others happy.
• It is implied that 22 is living a fulfilled and happy life on Earth after learning valuable lessons from Joe.

Pixar's Soul comes to an emotional conclusion after a harrowing journey between dimensions, so it's no surprise some viewers came away from the film with a few lingering questions. The film imagines a "Great Before," where souls find their "spark" before joining the mortal coil and being born as babies on Earth. With such heady concepts and profound themes as the purpose of life, Soul requires some thinking before all facets of its ending fully take shape.

In Soul , down-on-his-luck jazz musician/middle school band teacher Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) finally gets what he hopes will be his big break in the competitive professional scene of New York City jazz, but just before he can seal the deal, he dies, sending him to the Great Before. Despite the fact that Soul seems like Pixar's "first adult movie", as with most Pixar movies, Soul explores existential ideas close to its surface, taking in mortality, the meaning of life, and what life without purpose truly means. Those questions have been a major part of Pixar's pantheon all the way back to Toy Story , but here's how Soul tackles it.

As is tradition with any Pixar movie, the new Disney+ release includes all sorts of hidden references that keen-eyed fans are sure to pick up on.

What 22's Spark Is In Soul & Meaning Of The Maple Leaf Seed

One of the biggest mysteries throughout Soul is what 22's spark is , something that isn't explicitly revealed at the end of the film. However, the movie heavily implies that 22's spark is simply an appreciation for living, with her being excited by all the little things on Earth that Joe overlooked in his life. This theme of appreciating life is reinforced when the maple leaf seed lands in Joe's hand at the end of the film. In this moment, Joe takes notice of the leaf and appreciates it, showing his new perspective on life and the joy that he now finds in the little things thanks to 22.

How Joe's Life On Earth Will Be Different

Although Soul ends with Joe being brought back to life, his life on Earth will be much different after his time in the afterlife. Joe has found a newfound appreciation for life, something that he picked up from spending time with 22. Joe realizes that he will not be fulfilled by making big career moves or by being accepted, with Joe presumably using the rest of his life to instead focus on what makes him and those around him happy.

What Happens To 22 After Soul's Ending

One of the biggest questions at the end of Soul is what happens to 22, as she is unseen after she leaves Joe. After giving 22 the maple seed she collected, 22 is prepared to go to Earth, with Joe accompanying her on her journey. After she departs. 22 is most likely living a life on Earth, with her hopefully being fulfilled and happy due to what she learned from Joe before starting her life.

How Is The Cat Still Alive In Soul?

Another major Soul plot hole has to do with how the cat survived , as it would have had no soul after Joe left the cat's body. However, the cat is seen alive again after Joe departs, which is incredibly confusing to some audiences. It could be that another soul jumped into the cat's body right as Joe left. It could also have to do with animal souls working differently from human souls, as animal souls aren't really explained in the film.

How Does Joe Get Back to the You Seminar?

With all this dimension-hopping, audiences would be forgiven for wondering just how Joe returns to the You Seminar after having left the Jerrys for good with 22's Earth badge. The answer lies in his piano. Let's recall that Moonwind and his merry pranksters each gain access to The Zone every Tuesday by meditating in whatever way they can immerse themselves. Joe's chosen form of meditation is music, so he retreats to his piano, enters the zone, and follows a wild, lost 22 through her box portal from The Zone back to the You Seminar to achieve his true goal and make things right.

How Lost Souls and the You Seminar Work

Tina Fey's 22 embodies on her journey to self-actualization after struggling with self-doubt and apathy. Soul suggests that when these feelings take hold of you, as they do 22 during the film's climax, your soul becomes encased in a cocoon of negative feelings. Such is the two-sided coin of The Zone, as Moonbeam describes: passion can consume them in a positive way, but passions and negative feelings alike can lead a soul astray.

The You Seminar is the preceding counterpart to the afterlife. It is run by the Jerrys: various manifestations of " the coming together of all quantized fields of the universe " which take a form legible to the human mind for the benefit of Joe and the audience. Early in Soul , it's established that it's the You Seminar's job to prepare souls to begin life by creating their personalities and helping them find their spark, but it's in the third act that it becomes clear precisely what that spark is , or perhaps more importantly, what it is not .

Joe operates for most of the movie on the mistaken assumption that the You Seminar is meant to give souls their singular purpose, with this being his fatal flaw in the film. However, as a Jerry explains before Joe returns to Earth to play in the Quartet, that understanding is far too simplistic.

The thoughtful and funny dialogue in Pixar's Soul illustrates how it might just be one of the studio's most poignant and touching movies yet.

The Real Meaning Of Soul’s Ending

This is the message writer/director Pete Docter hopes to leave with audiences: l ives don't boil down to some binary success or failure, but rather it's in the way each moment is lived, no matter how small, that gives all time on Earth meaning . Soul posits that one of the best way to be fulfilled is to simply find fulfillment in the small things by living in the moment rather than always being concerned about what is to come.

Furthermore, the film's exploration of lost souls through 22's incapacitating pessimism touches on themes of self-worth, which Soul producer Dana Murray describes as learning to love one's self. The ethereal film continues the existential discussions from Docter's 2015 effort Inside Out , but rest assured, Soul stands on its own two feet as another intriguing investigation into the mortal experience.

Pixar's Soul follows Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a pianist, who is killed in an accident just before his big opportunity to finally succeed in the world of jazz music. Joe's soul gets stuck in the "Great Before", a purgatory which gives him the idea of reuniting his body and soul. Alongside Foxx, Soul features the voices of Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad, and Angela Bassett.

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‘soul’ writer mike jones talks art, animation and the meaning of life.

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In Disney/Pixar’s “Soul,” a middle-school band teacher named Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) makes one ... [+] small misstep which takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before—a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks and interests before they go to Earth and where he meets a precocious soul, 22 (voice of Tina Fey).

Soul, the upcoming Pixar film (released on Disney+, Dec 25), explores life and death through the lens of a jazz musician and an unborn soul. The film was written by Pete Docter, Kemp Powers and Mike Jones. 

I spoke with Mike about Pixar’s storytelling process, the journey from screenplay to screen, and the lessons learned along the way.   

Senior Story and Creative Artist Mike Jones

Where did the idea for Soul come from?

Pete [Docter] had an idea, set in a place beyond space and time, where souls are given their personality. He was always kind of blown away by the fact that his son, as soon as he was born, seemed to have come with a personality already in him. He wondered, where did that come from? 

We had a setting, so we needed characters to really drive that plot, that in their actions, really drive the story. That’s kind of Pixar's big motivating force in all of their stories, that the character is creating the story, rather than the story happening to the character. 

We came up with the story of a soul who doesn’t want to die, who meets a soul who doesn’t want to live. In their interactions together they end up convincing each other of what it means to live a fulfilled life. 

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Once we hit upon that, that was our “North Star” for the four-plus years we worked on it. 

Did the story change much during the writing process?  

I can’t tell you of any Pixar movie that started as one thing, and ended up staying the same - they always change. And [ Soul protagonist] Joe Gardner was originally a Broadway star who died right before his big break. But we ultimately felt that that wasn’t really in line with what we wanted to say. As soon as we thought about making him a jazz musician, it really opened it up; the idea of infusing the movie with jazz just felt so immediately right. 

But we had a bunch of different versions. For a while, the movie was set solely in the “You Seminar,” where souls are given their personality - the problem was, at some point, we felt that for Joe to really learn how wonderful his life is, and for 22 to really understand what it means to live, they can’t really see it from a distance. They had to go down to Earth and experience life. 

Joe finds himself in The Great Before, a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, ... [+] quirks and interests before they go to Earth.

It’s a big concept - was it difficult to find a balance between exposition and mystery? 

That always seems to be the case with every Pixar movie, you're trying to find a way to not just explain everything with two characters talking. It's so boring to watch two animated characters just sitting down and talking - animation, by its very definition, is life, and life is action. 

Kemp [Powers] and I would be writing sequences where we would write a good, chunky bit of dialogue that a character has to say, and we’d always be looking at cutting it down and making it streamlined. Sometimes, we would take our work to the story artists and ask, “This is what we want to say - is there any way you can draw it, to say the same thing?”

That’s the kind of wonderful place Pixar is - it's filled with smart people who really know how to communicate, in their particular discipline. 

How much of the film's unique vision of the afterlife came from the visual artists? 

A lot of it came from the artists. For instance, when we were writing about the Councillors, we needed some kind of adult-ish presence in the You Seminar, and the only thing we really wrote was that these beings are a distillation of the universe, in a way that souls can understand. How do you draw that? 

It was [story artist] Aphton Corbin who came up with this idea of a simple line drawing, constantly in motion, with the appearance of an anthropomorphic being, but is ethereal, and also incredibly entertaining. 

Other artists took that concept and ran with it - I think there was a whole Inside Pixar documentary on Disney+ about the artists that ran with that idea, and literally created out of wire, these characters. 

It was also up to the production designer and the artists to figure out what this otherworldly space looks like. Someone, I forget who, came up with the idea that the pavilions actually moved, once a soul goes inside of it, and that movement is really the process of giving them a personality. 

The ethereal Councillors of "Soul"

Soul seemed like a pushback against the “find your purpose” theme common in children's animation - was that a deliberate choice?  

Yes, really early on, Pete, Kemp and I would talk a lot about what it means to live a fulfilled life. We started talking about the things that, once it's all said and done, and we look back on our life, are really going to be fulfilling. And none of it had to do with financial or artistic success - it had to do with the connections we’ve made with other people. 

Simple moments like watching a leaf fall, or eating a great piece of pie. Those moments had so much more impact when we thought about them, than what society sometimes tries to push as living a fulfilled life, by living a fulfilled career. 

It came to a head for me when my father passed away, in the middle of writing this movie, and as I was with him, I would wonder what he was thinking about, what’s important to him right now? I would imagine that sitting here with his son, holding his hand as he slipped away, would probably be one of his most important things ever. 

And so that became another thing that was really important to us. But we also didn’t want to say that following your artistic interests is wrong - it’s just one piece of this wonderful puzzle. 

When Joe gets the chance of a lifetime to play with Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett) at the best ... [+] jazz club in town, he believes his life is finally going to change.

How do you ensure that these deeper films remain accessible to young children?  

We always do audience previews, and family previews with kids, and we take those notes very seriously. What we’ve always found, and this goes back to Inside Out , and other movies with deeper concepts, is that kids get it. They might get it on a different level from adults, but they still get it. 

I love that a kid can watch one of our movies, get something out of it, and then watch it again when they’re at a different stage of their life, and get something else out of it. And ten, twenty years later those topics ring to a different part of that person's brain - I love that concept. 

We want our films to be entertaining, but we don’t want to make them empty for the sake of entertainment. 

Why is death such a big aspect of Pixar films? 

When we first started thinking about what it means to live a fulfilled life, we weren't thinking about it in terms of death; we were just thinking about it in terms of how a life progresses. In order to put stakes on our lead character, we decided to make it about his fight against death, in order to underline what we were trying to say about life. 

We’re using it as a way of framing how wonderful life is. It's probably one of the best ways of sharpening that compulsive drive of making those stakes really clear and meaningful. 

By shining a light on the possibility of death, we’re hopefully radiating what it means to live a good life. 

Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22, to show her what’s great about living.

Has writing Soul changed the way you view life and death? 

It certainly underlined what's important to me - I have two children and a fantastic partner, and I feel really privileged to have a wonderful life. Sometimes, you forget; you get caught up in this business, you get caught up in your career. You go to bed at night with stress and anxiety, built around whatever tension happened in that career. 

If anything Soul has done for me, it showed me there is a way of turning our point of view to something else, something closer and more meaningful. Pixar is the place where you have workaholics, that work so incredibly hard on perfecting every little pixel of what we’re trying to say. And that can become overwhelming. 

What I want people to get out of Soul , if anything, is to get some idea of looking at these moments as meaningful moments, no matter how small they are. I want the world to get that from this movie. I also want Pixar to get that [laughs]. 

We work so hard on these movies, let's also remember how wonderful it is to just sit down, and be with the ones we love. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Soul Movie Discussion Guide — Part 1: The Blessing of Knowing about the Afterlife

The genius of  Soul  is its ability to bring up abstract and spiritual concepts in simplified ways that can be easily consumed and used for discussion. Conversations like these can help foster maturity, critical thinking, and love for the deen (religion) for both teens and tweens alike.

Although many of the concepts or representations offered in  Soul  may not be in complete alignment with our Islamic tradition, the movie can still serve as a tool to discuss and reflect on topics like  death, life’s purpose, community, and gratitude.  Our inclination may be to run from the different entertainment sources that our youth are using nowadays. However, taking the time to analyze, assess, and reflect on entertainment allows us to model for our children (or mentees!) that we should not be passive consumers. Using Islamic tradition as our moral compass, the new fad, song, movie— or TikTok challenge, for that matter— will not be emulated or enjoyed because it is “in” or cool, but because we have critically thought it to be worthwhile.

In an attempt to jumpstart your discussions, we have written this Movie Guide, a 4-part series, in which we present some common themes, along with reflections and discussion questions. The series covers the following themes:

• Part 1:  The Blessing of Knowing about the Afterlife
• Part 2:  It’s the Journey That Matters 
• Part 3: Our Souls and Brains Are Amazing
• Part 4: Power of Community; Representation Matters

Theme 1: The Blessing of Knowing about the Afterlife 

• Death is a conveyor belt that takes you to a bright light.
• Angels are bumbling bumpkins that “mess up the death count” or make mistakes
• Imaginative labels like “The Great Before” and “The Great Beyond”
• Detailed account of how our souls are taken from our bodies, the soul’s journey to the grave, and how we will be held accountable.
• The role of Angels. They never disobey Allah’s commands and do as they are ordained [66:6].
• The names Allah (SWT) has blessed us with in the Qur’an: The Day of Reckoning, Day of No Doubt, Day of Eternal Life, Day of Truth, and many more.
• The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “Remember the destroyer of pleasures.” When asked what that was, he replied, “Death. Whenever one of Allah’s servants remembers this when he is wealthy, this world is constricted for him. Whenever he remembers it in hardship, it is expanded for him.” (Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2307)
• We should not shy away from talking about death, as Ibn Umar reported: A man said, “Which of the believers is the wisest?” The Prophet (PBUH) said, “Those who remember death often and have best prepared for it with good deeds; those are the wisest.” (Sunan Ibn Mājah 4259)
• When we open up the conversation for our families to freely discuss their feelings about death and God’s description of the afterlife, we give ourselves the opportunity to mature and grow in wisdom in our daily actions.

Death is not the end.  While Joe Gardener scrambles to escape his fate, death is depicted as the end of his journey. Contrary to this belief, we do not see death as an end, but the beginning.

• We understand that life on this Earth is a temporary home. It is referred to in the Qur’an as “hayat adunya” or “the lower life.” We know that there is an everlasting life that we should strive for.
• We cannot escape death, but as the Prophet (PBUH) said, “Prepare yourselves for death before it comes to you.” Allah (SWT) names The Last Day as Yawmun la Maradda Lah, or The Day Which No One Can Avert.
• As the Prophet (PBUH) teaches us, we must live in this life as a traveler (Bukhari: 6416), and focus on what’s important. We can encourage this shift in perspective with our children.

It was said to him, “O Messenger of Allah, does hating to meet Allah mean hating to meet death? For all of us hate death.” 

He said, “No. Rather that is only at the moment of death. But if he is given the glad tidings of the mercy and forgiveness of Allah, he loves to meet Allah and Allah loves to meet him; and if he is given the tidings of the punishment of Allah, he hates to meet Allah and Allah hates to meet him.” 

• What do you think about Soul’s depiction of the afterlife? How does it compare to our Islamic tradition?
• How do you feel about dying and death?
• How do you imagine the grave or the afterlife to be? What do you worry about most? What are you most looking forward to?
• Discuss how we can live in this life as a traveler. What are you doing to prepare for the true life to come?

Blog Author:

Duaa Haggag, LPC is a Community Educator with The Family & Youth Institute. She holds a Master’s degree in counseling, with a dual certificate in school and community counseling. She currently works in private practice as a child, adolescent, and family therapist at Silent Sunlight Counseling. Her interests include group, play, and art therapy.

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Resentment in our hearts: hurting and healing, zakat eligibility of the fyi.

The Family & Youth Institute, or The FYI, is a well-known Muslim organization in the United States. It works to promote mental health and wellness by strengthening and empowering individuals, families, and communities through research and education. It has been working for many years to bring Islamic perspectives to understanding and promoting mental health in our communities.

It is dedicated to serving and supporting Muslims – safeguarding our deen, our families, and our future generations. Therefore, the work of The FYI comes in the category of ‘fi sabeelillah’ or the Path of Allah, within the eight categories where Zakat money can be used.

“ Zakah expenditures are only for the poor and for the needy and for those employed for it and for bringing hearts together [for Islam] and for freeing captives [or slaves] and for those in debt and  for the cause of Allah , and for the [stranded] traveler – an obligation [imposed] by Allah, And Allah, is Knowing and Wise .” (Al-Tawbah 9:60)

According to scholars who widen the meaning of fee sabeelillah to include any activities that promote Islamic growth, The FYI is indeed eligible to receive part of the Zakat funds for its programs and services. I urge Muslims in America to support this organization through their donations, general charity, and through their Zakat. I ask Allah swt to strengthen and guide The FYI to continue its good work in supporting Muslims.

Shaikh Ali Suleiman Ali, PhD

About Shaikh Ali

Sh. Ali Suleiman Ali was born in Ghana where he spent his childhood studying with various Muslim scholars. He then moved to Saudi Arabia and enrolled in the Islamic University of Madina.  He graduated with a degree in both Arabic and Islamic Studies. Dr. Ali went on to complete his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Sh. Ali serves on the Advisory Council of The Family & Youth Institute. He is the Senior Imam and Director of the Muslim Community of Western Suburbs in Canton, Michigan. Additionally, he serves as the Director of Muslim Family Services in Detroit and is a council member of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA). He is also a member of the North American Imams Federation (NAIF) and the Association of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA).

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Disney & pixar’s soul.

Grades: Grades 3-5

Subject Area: Social Studies, Music, and Language Arts

Made Possible By: Disney & Pixar

Ever wonder what makes you, YOU ? In Pixar Animation Studio’s all-new feature film Soul , Joe, a middle school band teacher, explores the answer to this question. Encourage your students to think about this question and celebrate their individuality.

The engaging activities inspired by the film introduce students to jazz and some legendary musicians who inspire Joe, and encourage kids to reflect on the movie’s central theme of self-discovery.

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Pixar's "Soul" Trivia Quiz

Pixar released this animated film on december 25, 2020 on its disney+ streaming channel..

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Disney’s Soul Is Getting A Follow-Up, But Now How You’d Think

While 2020 was rough for the film industry, Pixar fans were lucky enough to be treated to two Pixar movies rather than the average of one per year. Onward arrived in March , and Soul followed in December, with the latter movie premiering exclusively on Disney+ stateside . Now it’s been announced that a Soul follow-up story is also heading to the Mouse House’s streaming service, only rather than being another feature-length movie, it will be a short film centered on Tina Fey ’s character, 22.

When Jamie Foxx ’s Joe Gardner met 22 in Soul , she was unwilling to head to Earth with the other souls, and instead spent her time causing trouble in The Great Before. This short film, titled 22 vs. Earth , will take place long before Joe came into 22’s life and delve into her beef with our planet. You also won’t have to wait that long to watch 22 vs. Earth , as it’s hitting Disney+ on April 30.

Directed by Soul editor Kevin Nolting (who’s been working at Pixar for 21 years), 22 vs. Earth sees its title character recruiting a gang of five souls in her attempt at rebellion against going to Earth. However, these other souls’ activities lead to unexpected results, resulting in 22’s subversive plot leading to a surprising revelation about the meaning to life. Here’s what Nolting had to say about 22 vs. Earth :

While making Soul, we talked about the why of a new soul not wanting to live on Earth, but it didn’t ultimately belong in that movie. 22 vs. Earth was a chance to explore some of the unanswered questions we had about why 22 was so cynical. As a fairly cynical person myself, it felt like perfect material.

Besides Tina Fey obviously reprising 22, no other casting details for 22 vs. Earth was announced, and it’s also unclear how long the short film will be. Still, if you watched Soul and enjoyed 22’s hijinks, then it sounds like this short film will be worth your time. Kevin Nolting also said the following about these other souls accompanying 22:

I think the new souls make the short so fun—the contrast of their pure innocence and delight with the cynical expectations of 22. The other new souls are what 22 once was before she took another path—purely innocent, blank slates to be guided by the counselors in their mostly uneventful journey to the earth portal. 22 sees an opening in that and attempts to guide them herself into her way of thinking.

The original Soul movie followed Joe Gardner, a pianist and middle school music teacher, getting the opportunity to play with a jazz legend… only for him to fall down a manhole and become comatose. From there, Joe’s soul managed to avoid passing through The Great Beyond and tried desperately to return to his body , leading to him striking up a unique relationship with 22 upon meeting her in The Great Before. Soul ’s cast also included Graham Norton, Phylicia Rashad, Rachel House, Angela Bassett , Alice Braga, Donnell Rawlings, Questlove and Daveed Diggs , among others. Pete Docter and Kemp Powers directed the movie, as well as wrote the script with Mike Jones.

Like so much of Pixar’s cinematic fare, Soul has been met with a lot of positive reviews, and its accolades include winning two Golden Globes and currently being in the running for three Oscars. We’ll find how it does with the latter honors when the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony airs on ABC this Sunday, April 25, but just a few days later, Soul fans will be able to check out 22 vs. Earth on Disney+, so make sure you’re subscribed to the platform .

Looking further into the future, Pixar’s next movie, Luca , will arrive on June 18 as a Disney+ exclusive . Browse through our 2021 movies schedule to learn what other flicks are coming out later in the year.

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Movie Review: SOUL

Diverting but oddly safe pixar fantasy.

SOUL movie poster | ©2020 Disney/Pixar

Rating: PG Stars (voices): Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Angela Bassett, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Wes Studi, Fort une Feirnster, Zenobia Shroff Writers: Pete Docter & Mike Jones & Kemp Powers Director: Pete Docter Co-Director: Kemp Powers Distributor: Disney Release Date: December 25, 2020

SOUL has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, including Best Animated Motion Picture and Best Score (by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, with jazz compositions and arrangements by Jon Batiste), and will no doubt get some Oscar nods as well.

The title of SOUL comes from both the spirit of jazz music, dear to the heart of our hero, Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx), and the spirit that animates life. The film starts out frisky, and is warmly and philosophical, but there’s something oddly safe about it.

Joe is a middle-aged middle school band teacher in New York City, who lives for those rare times when he can play club gigs. When he auditions for a spot in the ensemble of noted jazz musician Dorothea Williams (voiced by Angela Bassett), Joe has his dream in sight. Then he gets so excited that he doesn’t watch where he’s going and steps into an open manhole.

Joe finds himself as an astral projection version of himself, on a moving walkway with other souls to the Great Beyond. Absolutely refusing to die with his life’s goal in reach, Joe careens off the walkway and finds himself in the Great Before, where new souls get personalities before they’re sent to Earth to be born.

Here, Joe encounters 22 (voiced by Tina Fey), who is as determined never to go to Earth as Joe is to get back there. This is the setup for the rest of SOUL .

The movie from Pixar and Disney is charmingly made. The characters are appealing in their designs, and the look of the administrators in the Great Before is imaginative. There is a deliberate contrast between the hyper-realistic details of elements like concrete sidewalks and wooden piano sidings and the 3D animation style of people, souls, and a cat who plays a large role in the proceedings. The juxtaposition helps illustrate the notion that the physical world and the spiritual world both have their different joys.

Foxx is ever-relatable as Joe, and Fey is amusing as the precocious child-like 22. Bassett has star power as Dorothea. Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Wes Studi, Fortune Feirnster, and Zenobia Shroff all sound patient and reassuring as gentle authority figures.

SOUL has a perfectly good message. Still, once director Pete Docter and co-director Kemp Powers, who both wrote the script with Mike Jones, lead us through how things work, they fall back on convention. It’s not too hard to figure out what will happen, and some of the adventures feel like riffs on other Disney properties. It’s pleasant and enjoyable, but by the end, we don’t feel like we’ve had an altogether new experience.

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The Terrifying Real Case That Inspired Netflix's 'The Deliverance'

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The new Netflix horror film The Deliverance made a splash over Labor Day Weekend and is currently contending for the top spot on the platform . The Lee Daniels film is notable for its Black-majority cast, demon possession narrative in the lane of The Exorcist and The Conjuring , and Glenn Close 's iconic wigs. But this haunted house movie is more than a Hollywood creation; it comes with a frightening backstory. The Deliverance is directly inspired by the Ammons family haunting , a case of demonic possession that occurred in 2011 in Gary, Indiana. The real-life story centers around Latoya Ammons, her mother, Rosa Campbell, and her three children. While Daniels takes artistic license to tell a more sensationalized version of the events, many details in The Deliverance draw directly from the Ammons case notes .

The Deliverance follows Ebony Jackson ( Andra Day ) as she moves into a new house in her town with her mother, Alberta (Glenn Close), and her three children, Nate ( Caleb McLaughlin ) , Shante ( Demi Singleton ) and Andre ( Anthony B. Jenkins ). When we first meet Ebony, it is established that she has been working with a DCS officer, Cynthia Henry ( Mo'Nique ), after her husband filed complaints of alcoholism, physical abuse, and parental neglect against her. As soon as the family moves into the house, strange things start to happen, which escalate quickly in the final quarter. However, the film's first half is more of a family drama that blurs the lines between the supernatural and the impact of mental health on families .

'The Deliverance' Is Based on the Case of the Ammons Family

The official case notes of the Ammons haunting, including "medical, psychological, and official records" were acquired by The Indianapolis Star during its investigation of the incident . This report details the events that occurred after Latoya Ammons moved her family into a rental house in Gary, Indiana in November 2011. T he incidents started in classic haunted house movie fashion — with an eerie foreshadowing. In this case, it was flies swarming the Ammons' porch in the dead of winter. Ammons and Campbell also reported hearing footsteps coming up the basement stairs during the night and the basement door creaking, even when they had locked it. In the film, flies swarm near the Jacksons' basement door, and the basement also serves as the ultimate source of the family's haunting .

Following these initial disturbances, accounts of events in the Ammons household got progressively more drastic . Ammons claimed that her 12-year-old daughter levitated above her bed, her 7-year-old son was thrown out of the bathroom by an unknown force, and all three children began speaking in unnaturally deep voices in frequent bouts of demonic possession. In Daniels' interpretation of events in The Deliverance , Andre, the youngest child, is the target of the demonic presence living in the basement. As the demon possesses him, he begins to exert control over his siblings too, and things grow increasingly violent.

Is There Any Proof of the Ammons' Demonic Possession?

Were it not for the eyewitness accounts of medical staff, police, and the Department of Child Services case manager on site, the Ammons haunting would have had very little evidence in its favor other than Ammons' and Campbell's testimonies. But in this case, authorities witnessed strange occurrences as well. When the Ammons family visited their physician, medical staff reported seeing the 7-year-old lifted and thrown into the wall by an unseen force and promptly called 911. When a DCS officer was hired to look into possible child abuse allegations, she recounted in her official report that the boy rolled his eyes back in his head, growled, and grabbed his older brother's throat in the hospital . Washington and a registered nurse corroborated that later that same night, the boy "glided backward on the floor, wall, and ceiling. " Lee Daniels presents these events somewhat differently in The Deliverance . For instance, Nate tries to strangle Andre in the bathtub at home. However, Daniels stays true to the case when Cynthia, the on-screen DCS officer, watches Andre climb backward up the wall in one of the film's most unsettling scenes .

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Following the hospital incidents, DCS officials took emergency custody of Ammons' children without a court order, and, in June 2012, Reverand Michael Maginot performed three separate exorcisms on Latoya. In the film, the final battle with the demonic presence happens in a single night, and rather than a Catholic priest, Ebony is assisted by the "Reverend Apostle" Bernice James ( Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor ) whose "deliverance" ritual is more powerful and direct than an exorcism . Similar to the real story, the film focuses on Ebony as the very last person who must confront the demons, even though the haunting began with her children.

'The Deliverance' Blurs the Line Between Mental Health and the Supernatural

Despite The Deliverance being a haunted house movie , it focuses a lot on Ebony's mental health and abusive behavior . In the real events of 2011 to 2012, an unidentified caller contacted DCS only after Ammons and her children were taken to the hospital. The caller expressed concern that Ammons was experiencing delusions and that her children were "performing" possession under her encouragement . In the Ammons' physician's notes, he described her as experiencing "delusions of ghost in home" and "hallucinations." In the film, Ebony is tested for schizophrenia and breaks down in tears when she admits to hearing sounds that no one else can hear and feeling paranoid that something is out to get her. Once again, Daniels makes a parallel between the effect mental illness has on a person and being haunted by a supernatural force.

In the film, Daniels also takes the involvement of DCS back further, keeping Ebony as the potential culprit behind her children's injuries from the very beginning. As early as the first scene in the film, Ebony hits her children, and on several occasions, her heavy drinking causes her to black out, meaning the viewer doesn't get to see what happens during her gaps in memory. In one central scene, the viewer follows Alberta up the stairs after she hears her grandchildren screaming. Inside the bedroom, Ebony is on the floor, her children are cowering in the corner, and no one can explain what happened. Because we don't get to see it firsthand, it is unclear if Ebony or demons caused the children to scream.

In November 2012, Latoya Ammons regained custody of her children, and there have been no reports of haunting since the family moved out of the house in Gary and to a new place in Indianapolis. While what really happened in the Ammons haunting may never be uncovered, the chilling real tale has continued to interest many, including Lee Daniels. Before the end credits, Daniels shows an image of Latoya Ammonds and of the house where she experienced the hauntings. Underneath the images, text tells us that despite being bulldozed in 2016, there are reports of strange occurrences around where it once stood to this day.

The Deliverance

The Deliverance is available to watch on Netflix.

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