movies: soul

So... this has been a little while coming. And a movie that we would have gone to see at Christmas, if Disney had bothered to release it to cinemas.

This is going to be one of those reviews where I kind of need to talk specifics about the movie. It's about to get semi, slightly, possibly quite a bit spoilery up in here. 

As a quick side note, I will say that I was very, very pleased that I managed to go into this movie without knowing anything of substance. I knew it was about jazz, I knew it was about a piano player. I knew there were "little cloud people". And that was that. I didn't even know who was voicing the lead characters.

Soul is... 75% of an interesting idea followed 75% of the way to a satisfying conclusion.

Let me say this also... I didn't cry. I cried in Coco and Toy Story 4. In fact I barely really got all that choked up. Which doesn't really surprise me, given that this is a Pete Docter movie. And I feel very much about this movie the same way that I felt about Inside Out.

You took a very broad and vast concept and you tried your best to define it, but you just didn't get it over the finish line for me. And left me somewhat emotionally distanced from the whole idea by the end. But slightly worse than Inside Out, the concept behind soul is... muddled.

I get what it's about, don't get me wrong, but for me at least, it went in too many directions and you didn't give me enough clarity to the point of your movie.

It's also one of the most curiously structured movies. We start out in the human world with our main character, Joe, and we're there what feels like a long time before we even get where the movie really needs to be to start the main story. And yes, some of the lead up makes sense in order to get to where we need to go structurally later, but I feel like there must have been a better way to get there.

Then just about the time I started thinking "So, is this is then, is this what we're doing for the rest of the movie, this seems weird", we switch back to the human world into what feels like a very well worn trope. In fact, I literally said right before it happened, "I bet you $50 that X and Y", sure enough 11 seconds later I would have been $50 richer if we'd been betting real actual money and it wasn't super predictable and obvious. So, now the movie starts... again. Which is fine, but the tone takes a turn every time we relocate.

And, honestly, if I stop and think about it, this part of this movie maps almost one to one onto Inside Out. Oh, we're two opposite personality types who want two different things and one of us is super uptight about it and now we're here when we need to be there, so we definitely have to find a way to get from here to there before the arbitrary deadline happens. And we learn things along the way.

Although honestly that's kind of the plot of Toy Story, Cars, The Good Dinosaur, Brave, Up, Onward and Monsters Inc. Huh... so it's a feature not a bug? Or that's just your basic buddy movie formula. Let's just say it's the latter, shall we.

Making Joe a jazz musician is all well and good... but, I honestly didn't care. I don't particularly like the style of jazz they were leaning into in the movie, it all sounds like a bunch of people working real hard at not making a decent sounding song to me. So, making that his emotional centre just didn't resonate. Also, as a person, he seems to have almost NO emotional connections.

But... you then go make him a teacher (which, honestly, doesn't factor into the movie AT ALL in any meaningful way... seriously, if you make him a... librarian giving music lessons on the side, it changes NO significant part of that movie), with a former student who is now a musician and who literally has the line "if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be where I am right now" and a current student who comes to him to essentially talk her out of giving up on music. And you DON'T make that the emotional heart in your movie beyond a couple of montage images at the end?

You have a character ask "why didn't you ever tell me about your life before?" and the answer be "because you never asked" and not find a way to make that more emotionally resonant. Especially given that you decide that the point of your movie is that even a "mundane and boring" life is something to be lived and experienced and savoured. I get that that's the point... I just can't get behind it.

Plus you have part of the overall conflict be between him having a day job OR a job that happens at night and on weekends. Sorry, what? And yes, I get it... in theory, and possibly in a throwaway line very early in the movie, the night job might result in "going on tour", but it never feels really like that much of an OR question. The choice is muddy which sets us up with stakes that don't feel like they matter. If he was doing something that was not connected to music in ANY way... then yes, I get it. But not this.

Like I said at the start... it's NEARLY there. It's 75% of an interesting idea. But they don't even take that 75% of an idea 100% of the way. Even that I could have gotten behind.

This was just... obtuse. In the "not clear or precise in thought or expression" sense of the word. It wasn't even that it was a "tell don't show" movie. There were times were it was kind of neither. It was instead going around telling me that it had already told me things by the end, but, honestly, I didn't feel it.

And really, the 75% idea is banging around in my brain because it's the ending where the movie absolutely falls flat on it's face. There were too many loops and hoops and i's and t's and ideas floating in the ether that don't get utilised. Too much busywork to get us to where the movie thinks that we need to be.

You set up the concept that people who really get into things they love leak over into this other reality... The Zone... and you have one of your two main characters in the real world and the other in The Zone at the end of the movie. And this ISN'T where you let Joe see the results of his decisions and choices? Instead you do that later in a completely DIFFERENT scene that is essentially repeating the same thing that we just did... but this time with a load of pocket junk?

And the thing that Joe, the person we've been theoretically rooting for this whole time, to get the thing he's been wanting, GETS the thing... and then... doesn't want it any more? Isn't feeling it? Nah, Joe, not good for you, huh buddy? No? Water is actually wet you say? What the fuck? I also realise that that is the whole point of your movie. That wanting a thing doesn't define your life, and learning to appreciate everything that makes up your life is important.

It just doesn't make for a satisfying movie conclusion. What it does make is a muddled message that spends most of the movie going zig and then goes zag in a very unfulfilling way at the last moment.

And honestly, having a character say that they could "die happy" if they got to do a thing, do that thing and then basically elect to die doesn't really make me feel good about life. And then have even that choice not mean anything because this is a Pixar movie and deus ex machina exists.

There are several things I can think of that may have fixed parts of it... but I feel like we come back to the "75% of an idea taken 75% of the way there" concept again. Or maybe it's that the idea they're trying to cram into 100 minutes is just too damn large, and the most they could actually wrangle into a movie was 75%.

I don't know.

Then we have the Sadness to Joe's Joy, the Mike to his Sully, the Queen to his Merida... 22. They kinda did 22 dirty all through this movie. Her arc feels like a lot of loosely connected dot points. I mean, yes, if you connect them up, you can indeed make a picture of a pizza slice, but it's a weird three dimensional slice that only really works if you look at it from a specific angle.

That analogy may have gotten away from me.

There are three radically different 22's in this movie. We first meet a moody cynic, which kinda works while we're in the "other place", but then stops making sense once we get back to the real world. So 22 becomes something completely different in fairly short order, suddenly she's excited about stuff and curious and joyful. Yes, the movie does dot it's i's and such to get her from here to there, but feels like a long walk. And then once we're back in the "other place" she becomes something totally different... damaged, emotional, wounded... with seemingly completely different motivations.

I'll be honest though, I didn't really like 22 that much. With the possible exception of the scenes between the barber shop and the artificially created movie conflict scene. Those bits I liked. The fun version of 22.

Damn... this movie is a big woollen lump, and any time I start to pull at any of the threads, the whole thing feels like it's going to fall apart. Or 75% of it, anyway.

Moving on to things that did work for me. The Other Place... not what it's called in the movie, but whatever. It's very pretty... and weirdly reminded me of the original Fantasia in a lot of ways. It's a vibe. I think it's the fact that the whole design aesthetic has a very 1950's/cubist feel... most notably the Jerrys and Terry, and their line art aesthetic, which I really, really loved.

The music by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor is very lovely. That sounds like faint praise... and in a way it kind of is, because, honestly, I don't notice the majority of non-diegetic music in any movie. Especially score music.

I also want to give them kudos for putting a lot of non-white voices (and animated faces, obviously) in the movie. Weirdly, the fact that I kept noticing it kind of kept pulling me out of the movie a little, as did the fact I kept recognising some of the side character voices. Speaking of which, shout out to Phylicia Rashad, because she's amazing, always and forever.

Just to circle back... I didn't hate it. Not at all. But it's a Disney Pixar movie, and I hold those to a very, very high standard. Higher even than just a regular Disney movie.

And this one just didn't get there for me.. so, given the repeated reference to 75%, I'm doing something a little different this time and scoring it at 75%...

yani's rating: 3.75 pizza slices out of 5