History WesternAnimation / Soul

''Soul'' is a 2020 animated film by Creator/{{Pixar}}. It is directed by Creator/PeteDocter (''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'', ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'') and Kemp Powers, (who was also one of the film's screenwriters) starring Creator/JamieFoxx, Creator/TinaFey, [[Music/TheRoots Questlove]], and Creator/PhyliciaRashad. The film released on Creator/DisneyPlus on December 25, 2020, making it Creator/{{Pixar}}'s first direct-to-digital film upon release (albeit strictly for [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic circumstantial reasons]]); a release on conventional home media and VOD platforms followed on March 23, 2021. The film, along with ''WesternAnimation/{{Luca}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', eventually got a theatrical release in early 2024.

It would eventually be revealed that ''Soul'' would get a proper theatrical release on January 12, 2024, alongside ''Burrow'' as per the original plan.

A spinoff short called ''WesternAnimation/TwentyTwoVsEarth'' was released on Creator/DisneyPlus in 2021.

* AnAesop:
** Having a singular passion or purpose in life is great, but it's not the same as living, nor is it the one thing about your life that can/should make you happy. It's the little things in between the exciting moments that make life worth living.
** Sometimes in life, much like when playing music, you have to improvise.
** You can't exactly live the best moments of your life if you're dead, so take care of yourself and keep yourself out of danger. Specifically, watch your steps. Don't walk and talk at the same time.

The plot centers around Joe Gardner, a middle school music teacher in New York City who dreams of performing jazz music on stage. One of his past students invites him to audition for a legendary saxophonist, who is so impressed by his playing that she hires him for her quartet. However, after Joe suffers an accident on the way home, his soul ends up separated from his body. While being transported to a place called the Great Beyond, he panics and falls into the You Seminar (formerly the Great Before), an ethereal plane of existence where souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must work with 22, a soul-in-training with a dim view on life after being trapped for years in the You Seminar, in order to return to Earth and get back into his body before it's too late.

* FiveFiveFive: As Joe is walking through a construction site on the phone (as noted below), a sign in the background advertises space for lease and a phone number with these three numbers (along with the area code for Manhattan).
** As does the Jamaican restaurant next to Libba's tailor shop, although this time with area code 347 (which covers all five major boroughs of New York).

* EyeCam: When Joe awakens in the hospital bed, we see the scene from his POV with blinking eyes. This leads up to the reveal that he incarnated into Mr. Mittens's body.

** When Curley introduces Joe to Dorothea Williams, [[spoiler:he refers to Joe as "The cat I told you about". While "cat" tends to be slang for Jazz Musicians, Joe finds himself in the body of a cat, during the course of the film]].

** In a bit of a [[FreezeFrameBonus blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment]], after Jerry explains how new souls go to Earth by finding their "spark", he can then be heard rhetorically asking "And what ''is'' this spark?" before Joe gets too distracted by his own ImagineSpot to hear the answer. [[spoiler:Without that crucial piece of information, Joe assumes the "spark" is one's passion/purpose in life, but it’s later revealed that the "spark" is really just the desire to live.]]
** Joe's mother is dismissive about her son's audition with Dorothea Williams, commenting that it's "just another gig." [[spoiler:When the performance happens, it made clear that she was right - as great as it was, it wasn't the life-changing experience Joe assumed it would be. His supposed dream is just as much of a job as his teaching position and isn't the sole purpose of his life. In the end, it was just another gig to play.]]

'''22 as Joe:''' Great. {{Beat}} Who's Dez?

* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: [[spoiler: A mishap leads to 22 in Joe's body while Joe ends up in a therapy cat. Joe is subject to all of a cat's instincts, like napping in the sunlight or chasing after spots of light, while 22 experiences Joe's love of music after previously expressing apathy towards it (though considering that Joe told her this in a fit of anger, her enjoyment of music is likely genuine).]]

* ProductionThrowback: When Joe and 22 are trying pizzas in the Hall of Everything, one of the pizzas visible is the broccoli pizza from Creator/PeteDocter’s previous Pixar feature, ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut''.

* TheVoiceless: Despite Esther Chae being casted as Miho, a bassist in Williams' band, she doesn't actually utter a single word throughout the film. This left a lot of people to assume that her contributions were scrapped at the last minute.

->''"We only have a short time on this planet. You want to become the person that you were born to be. Don’t waste your time on all the junk of life. Spend your precious hours doing what will bring out the real you. The brilliant passionate you, that’s ready to contribute to something meaningful into this world."''

* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: The Japanese version uses a jazz remix of Juju’s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwZGoo3VH8M&list=OLAK5uy_kRRiS216-cauCFENysXikeuIC1ssmkiSw&index=1 "Kiseki Wo Nozomunara"]] as the ending theme.

** It isn't clear if [[spoiler: Joe chooses to join Dorothea's band or becomes a full-time teacher after getting his second chance at life [[TakeAThirdOption (assuming he did either of those things)]]. He only says that he is going to live]].

* AnimalTalk: When Joe tries to speak [[spoiler: in a cat's body to anyone besides 22, all they hear is meowing]]. Moonwind seems to be able to understand Joe [[spoiler: in cat form, possibly because of his experiences in the Zone or because he's communicated with Joe's soul before.]] It's not entirely clear whether he does or not.
* {{Anticlimax}}:
** Joe’s single-minded determination to get the gig [[spoiler: finally pays off… and it’s in a series of quick cuts where Joe seems to lack that same spark from before.]] Joe himself lampshades this, expecting it to "feel different".
** In a more comedic example, after opposing Joe throughout the film, Terry [[spoiler: is defeated when one of the Jerrys pulls a "Look over there" and messes with the count, allowing Joe to return to life with Terry none the wiser. [[InspectorJavert Given Terry isn't actually a villain]], and [[SmugSnake not as smart or competent as they think]],]] it's quite fitting.

* AskAStupidQuestion: [[spoiler: As Joe is about to ascend to the afterlife. One of the Jerrys interrupts him and asks if he has a moment.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Joe returns to his body and resolves to treasure his life to the fullest. While he does show 22 the beauties of life on Earth, he will likely never see 22 again due to her starting a new life and incarnating as a different person. And when 22 ends up traveling to Earth legitimately, the shot seems to be heading to the middle of Asia, a hemisphere across the world from where Joe lives. And even ''if'' they were lucky enough to meet again, it was established earlier in the movie that born souls don’t remember their time in the Great Before, so the person whose soul is 22 wouldn’t have any memory of Joe or their adventures with him.]]

** [[spoiler:The Jerrys give Joe another chance at life.]] When Joe asks about Terry, Jerry A answers that they worked it out with Terry. [[spoiler:Jerry B actually distracted Terry from her abacus when she was about to realize the count was off again and moved the bead that represents Joe over while she wasn’t looking.]]

** Downplayed. The Jerrys are genuinely benevolent beings who make it so every soul is their own unique individual and are adamant about giving each one a chance at life. One of the Jerrys even suggests they stop giving so many souls a self-absorbed personality, implying that they want these souls to be good people. However, at least one of the Jerrys didn’t seem to mind when one of the souls gained personality traits that would make them TheSociopath on Earth, laughing it off as being Earth’s problem to deal with.
** Terry, the accountant, is obsessed with getting the soul count right and spends the movie hunting Joe down to return him to the Great Beyond, essentially killing him again. Terry isn't depicted as being malicious or bad for doing this, as they are just doing their job. However, considering that the Jerries eventually [[spoiler: give Joe a second chance at life and rig the count to show that Joe has passed through without any negative consequences, it would seem that setting the count right isn't as important as Terry would have you believe]].

* BrickJoke: [[spoiler: The rap group sample plays at the end of the credits.]]

* Catch22Dilemma: PunnyName aside, 22 herself is stuck in this scenario. She wants to get rid of her badge so she will never be born, but to do so, it has to be turned into an Earth Pass, which only happens when a newborn soul finds their "Spark" (i.e. [[spoiler:their desire to get a life of their own]]).

* ConveyorBeltOfDoom: Zig-zagged. The road leading to the Great Beyond appears as a conveyor belt, though most souls are either [[FaceDeathWithDignity accepting]] or apathetic toward their fate. Joe is the exception, [[spoiler: at least at first.]]

** [[spoiler: At the very end of the credits, Terry appears and admonishes any remaining viewers that the film is over and they should go home, a la Ferris Buller or Deadpool at the end of their films. (Telling viewers to go home is unintentionally ironic because most viewers have been streaming the film at home anyway.)]]

* DespairEventHorizon: During the movie's climax, [[spoiler: 22 becomes a Lost Soul when she believes she has no purpose after she is pulled back from Earth. Joe returns to the Great Before to pull her out of this.]]
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Zig-zagged; 22 sees no reason to want to have a life and would much rather stay in the Great Before. When she's forced to [[spoiler: experience life in Joe's body]], she learns to love it and doesn't want to leave. At the same time, this attitude is deconstructed because the Great Before isn't about assigning a purpose. The whole point of getting the Spark of Life that completes a soul's development is simply being inspired by the desire to live at all. It's fine to seek a passion in one's life but having a passion is just a part of the whole of living, all of the other parts are important to living fully. This is best emphasized by people becoming Lost Souls when they become too obsessed with staying in "The Zone".

** Moonwind states that [[spoiler: while his passion was ''Videogame/{{Tetris}}'', his main occupation is helping Lost Souls in "The Zone". This foreshadows that a passion and a purpose are not always the same thing]].
** Joe is warned that souls become "lost" if they become obsessed with something. When [[spoiler: 22 enters a DespairEventHorizon when she loses her chance to return to Earth, she becomes a Lost Soul herself during the movie's climax, obsessed with her self-perception as a failure.]]
** 22 explains that as a soul, she can take on any form and voice, and she demonstrates by turning into a replica of Joe. [[spoiler: Later on, 22 gets stuck in Joe's physical body.]]
** In a bit of a [[FreezeFrameBonus blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment]], after Jerry explains how new souls go to Earth by finding their "spark", he can then be heard rhetorically asking "And what ''is'' this spark?" before Joe gets too distracted by his own ImagineSpot to hear the answer. [[spoiler: Without that crucial piece of information, Joe assumes the "spark" is one's passion/purpose in life, but it’s later revealed that the "spark" is really just the desire to live.]]
** Joe's mother is dismissive about her son's audition with Dorothea Williams, commenting that it's "just another gig." [[spoiler: When the performance happens, it made clear that she was right - as great as it was, it wasn't the life-changing experience Joe assumed it would be. His supposed dream is just as much of a job as his teaching position and isn't the sole purpose of his life. In the end, it was just another gig to play.]]

* GoalInLife: Deconstructed. While it's a good thing to have a dream or passion, being obsessed with it is not. Life offers many possibilities and interests to enjoy, and being focused on just one of these will not make you happy nor complete. [[spoiler: This is best exemplified by The Lost Souls who are turned into monsters driven by the desire to fulfill their obsessions.]]
* GoingDownWithTheShip: Moonwind does this when [[spoiler: 22 as a Lost Soul drags the ship down]].

* GrandTheftMe: Though it happens accidentally at first, [[spoiler: 22 ends up in Joe's body and Joe ends up taking over the body of a cat. While trying to find a way to get Joe back in his own body, 22 discovers that she really likes living on Earth, and then decides to run away with Joe's body so that can continue to live.]]

* HiddenDepths: Having [[spoiler: 22 interact with people in his life while in Joe's body]] causes Joe to realize things about them he never knew, [[spoiler: as 22 is curious about their lives and asks a lot of questions Joe never thought to]].

** When Joe is told about the Earth Portal, he hurries and jumps into it, only to be flung back to the Great Before. [[spoiler: This is also a bit of foreshadowing that Joe is too narrowly focused on himself and his own goals, as he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to hear Jerry explaining that souls need an Earth Pass.]]

* IronicEcho: The first time we get a look at Joe's life events, it's played up as being boring and mundane, key among these events is Joe sitting all by his lonesome in a diner. [[spoiler: Later, after looking back on his life and how meaningful it was on its own, we see that same diner memory, but it's played up as a simple but sublime moment that [[MundaneMadeAwesome Joe ate a delicious pecan pie]].]]

-->'''Joe in cat form''': We gotta see Dez.
-->'''22 as Joe''': Great. {{Beat}} Who's Dez?

* MistakenForProfound: When 22 [[spoiler: in Joe's body, tells Dez and the other barbers and patrons in the barbershop about her existence as an unborn soul,]] everyone assumes that she's speaking metaphorically about life and seem to relate.

* NoAntagonist: [[spoiler: The closest thing to an antagonist is Terry, and while she does try to capture Joe and 22, it's not out of malice or hatred. She's just doing her job of accounting for every soul that's supposed to pass from Earth to the Great Beyond, if only a bit obsessively. The worst Terry does is leaving someone she mistakenly caught instead of 22 (who she didn't know was in Joe's body at the time) badly traumatized.]]
* NoEndorHolocaust: [[spoiler: When Joe finally gets back into his body, the therapy woman catches Mr. Mittens, confirming he survived as a normal cat despite his soul being shown on the conveyer belt earlier. Then again, it might be a literal example of the proverb that cats have nine lives.]]

-->'''Joe''': Uh, hey, uh, is this heaven?
-->'''Jerry''': ''(chuckles)'' No.
-->'''Joe''': ...Is it [[CensorshipBySpelling H-E-double hockey sticks]]?
-->'''Young souls''': [[EuphemismBuster Hell, hell, hell hell, hell!]]

** Said verbatim by Joe when he realizes [[spoiler: his mom already knows about the gig.]]
* OldShame: Joe’s rap group. He tries to stop 22 from watching them perform when the two review Joe's memories.

-->'''Terry''': Thought you could [[YouCantFightFate cheat the universe!?]] Well, you thought wrong!

* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler: Terry’s plot. She’s so determined to make sure the soul count is correct that she spends unquantifiable time searching file cabinets for one soul, then the rest of the movie hunting him down. At the end, the Jerrys sneak Joe back to life by distracting Terry and rigging the count. And that’s how it’ll stay.]]

** [[spoiler: Joe finds himself in a cat's body. "Cat" is a slang term for a Jazz Musician.]]

** For the score, [[spoiler: we hear the full song of the rap group Joe was in]].

--> [The subway] wears you down. It stinks. It's hot. It's crowded. Every day the same thing, day in and day out.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:

** [[spoiler: While getting out of a cab, Dorothea sees 22 in Joe's body wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Instead of brushing it off as a one-time thing, she immediately decides he's mentally unfit for the gig and hires someone else. It's only after Joe takes back his body and talks to her before the gig that she changes her mind.]]
** After playing with Dorothea, [[spoiler: Joe wonders what happens next, and she answers they do the same thing every night. Realizing it sounds too much like routine, Joe voices how he hoped fulfilling his dream would make him feel different for once. It's Dorothea who has to spell it out that sometimes, fulfilling your dream isn't going to make your life more exciting all at once. It's but a milestone, and sometimes, you may not realize you're already living a good life.]]
* SweetAndSourGrapes: For most of the film, Joe is attempting to cheat death and return to his mortal body, instead of moving on to the Great Beyond where he belongs. In the end, [[spoiler: he has made his peace with death and is ready to go to the Great Beyond. Only then does Jerry allow him to return to his life in an approved, legitimate manner (even if Jerry needed to trick Terry to make it happen)]].

** [[spoiler: We, along with Joe, never find out what became of 22 after she finally descends to Earth in the end]].
** [[spoiler: Joe never goes to the Great Beyond because he is given a second chance at life by the Jerrys, so it's never revealed what the Great Beyond even is or what happens to a soul that enters it]].
** [[spoiler: Whether Joe went back to being a music teacher, continued to play for Dorothea's band, [[TakeAThirdOption or did both or something else entirely]], is also left to the viewers' imagination]].
* UnusualEuphemism: 22 refers to human fingers as "bendy meat-sticks" [[spoiler: as she complains about being in Joe's body]]. Later on, Terry refers to the human body as a "meat suit" as she puts Paul's soul back into his body after accidentally catching him instead of Joe and 22.

* VoicesAreMental: Averted. [[spoiler: While we hear 22 and Joe speaking in the human world in their regular voices, everyone else hears Joe's voice and a cat meowing, respectively]].
* WanderingWalkOfMadness: Lost souls who wander through “the zone” can become obsessed on a single fixation, which can corrupt them and erode their sanity.
* WantingIsBetterThanHaving: After a lifetime of failures, close calls, and rejections, and spending the whole movie trying to make it back into his body, Joe finally [[spoiler: achieves his life long dream, plays with Dorothea Williams in a show and gets hired to play with her quartet full time. Yet Joe still feels unfulfilled, and says that he expected it to feel different.]] Tying into the film's themes, this is because it's a worthwhile endeavor, but not the sole thing Joe should be living for.

** After 22 [[spoiler: gives Joe her Earth Pass, he finds out that "spark" doesn't mean what he thought.]]
--->'''Joe''': We never found out [[spoiler: what 22's purpose was]].\\
'''Jerry''': Excuse me?\\
'''Joe''': [[spoiler: You know, her spark. Her purpose]]. Was it music? Biology? Walking?\\
'''Jerry''': [[spoiler: We don't assign purposes]]. Where did you get that idea?\\
'''Joe''': Because I have piano. It's what I was born to do. That's my spark.\\
'''Jerry''': [[spoiler: A spark isn’t a soul's purpose]]. Oh, you mentors and your passions. Your "purposes". Your "meanings of life". So basic.
** Later, [[spoiler: when Joe asks Moonwind where 22 is]].
--->'''Moonwind''': [[spoiler: I’m afraid she’s become a Lost Soul.]]
* WhatIsThisFeeling: [[spoiler: One of the issues in the You Seminar is that the Souls are unable to actually feel or taste anything. So when 22 gets into Joe's body she experiences a sensory overload as she takes in the sheer multitude of the world that she's never experienced before.]]

* YouDidntAsk: When [[spoiler: 22 in Joe's body]] asks Dez the barber why he never talked much about his own life before, Dez's response is this trope. Dez explains that he operates under the philosophy that the one in the chair is the boss, and since Joe is single-mindedly obsessed with music and has only ever chosen to talk about jazz, he's never told Joe anything about himself.
* YouWereTryingTooHard: For all of 22's pre-life, the Jerrys have assigned her the most famous and accomplished historical figures as mentors to help find her spark, and none could help convince her to give Earth a try. [[spoiler: It took actually going to Earth with a random band teacher from New York to finally obtain it and give living a go. The implication is that all of her previous mentors have over-emphasized the need to be exceptional, thus intimidating 22 and leaving her feeling inferior, while her experiences on Earth showed her that it's the little things in life and the connections you make with people that truly make life worth living]].

** 22 has a different design than the rest of the unborn souls.