Soul | Movie Review
One night a few weeks ago I decided to take a nap, and I let my son watch a movie in bed beside me while I was napping. He didn’t know what he wanted to watch, so I threw on Disney + and chose the first movie I saw on my feed. That movie was Soul (by Disney + Pixar). I fell asleep while he was watching it, and without knowing anything about the movie at all, I dreamt that my soul was separated from my body, and I was just a soul trying to body slam my way back in.
I woke up and told a couple of my spiritual friends about my dream, and one of them asked if I had watched the movie “Soul” recently. I said I hadn’t actually watched it, but I let Mason watch it while I was napping and must have subconsciously taken in some of the movie. I had no idea what the movie was about until she asked me that, and her question got me interested in watching it myself.
So that evening, Mason requested Soul again because he loved it so much, and I decided to watch it with him. We’ve watched it several times since.
I can honestly say this is now one of my favorite animated movies.
Plot Overview
Warning, this contains spoilers.
Soul, follows middle school music teacher Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) as he tries to catch his big break as a Jazz musician. After years of being rejected, and no support from his family, Joe finally gets the chance to perform for jazz legend Dorothea Williams after impressing her with his piano skills at an audition. While on his way home to prepare for the big show, Joe falls down a manhole and suddenly finds himself as a soul standing on a conveyor belt heading to the “great beyond”. His fall down the manhole put him into a comatose state and separated his soul from his body.
In a complete panic, and unwilling to die before his big break, Joe frantically tries to get off the conveyor belt, running past other souls who are on their way to the great beyond. In his frenzy, he falls from the lineup into time and space, and ends up in the “Great Before”, a place where soul counselors prepare unborn souls for life on Earth. Each soul is assigned a mentor (kind of like a spirit guide?) who helps them decide on different personality traits and passions they will have on Earth. Each soul has a badge they need to complete before being granted access to Earth.
Joe is mistaken for a mentor and assigned an unborn soul to help- number 22. Number 22 doesn’t want to earn her badge and go to Earth, and may great souls had tried to help her before Joe. She agrees to let Joe help her so he can use her badge to go back to Earth, and they set off to find the spark she needs to earn it. His attempts to find her passion remain futile, and they head to “the zone”- a place where lost souls go. In the zone, they are helped by Moonwind, the leader of a group of mystics on earth who are alive on earth meditating into “the zone”. They open a spot for Joe to jump back to earth, and he does, accidentally bringing Number 22 with him, resulting in Number 22 going into Joe’s body and Joe’s soul going into a cat’s body.
From there, it’s a rush to figure out a way to get Joe back into his body so that he can fulfill his purpose of being a jazz musician. But is that really his purpose for being here?
Lessons From The Movie
Through several twists and turns, they come to the conclusion that our purpose for being here is simply to experience life, not to devote your life to one passion to the point of it destroying you. While watching Number 22 experience the simple things in life through his body, Joe realizes that it’s the little things and how we impact other people that matter most.
At the end he finally gets to play with Dorothea Williams, but he doesn’t feel like he thought he would after. It teaches the lesson that we’re on this earth to enjoy, experience, and help others, and that is our true purpose. You can live a life full of purpose, love, fun and passion without ever achieving that big dream or career goal society tells us we need to achieve.
Have you seen Soul yet? What lessons did you take away from the movie?
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