I really loved Pete Docter's film Inside Out, and the imaginative abstract world and emotional elements seemed to be a big part of this film, too.
Joe Gardner is a music teacher who feels he caved to his mother and settled for a reliable job that doesn't let him use his passion for jazz to its fullest. When a former student offers him a gig with a legendary band, however, he goes to try out—and dies on his way there by falling in a manhole.
As a soul, Joe is going to the Great Beyond, but he refuses and escapes to the Great Before, where souls are going to get personality traits and be assigned to human bodies. Joe poses as a mentor for 22, a soul who's never found her spark to go down to Earth, and his tutelage takes them back to Earth in the wrong bodies when they try to get spiritual assistance.
I do really like the film's atmosphere. The city in the real world is so detailed, and the soul realms are abstract, colorful, and excellently scored. There's humor and concepts reminiscent of The Good Place, too. I also like aspects of what the film has to say about passion and purpose and the meaning of life.
However, there wasn't an immersive connection for me, and the film has awkward elements that are worth considering. For example, the story follows an unfortunate pattern of black leads in animated films spending a lot of the time transformed outside their own black bodies, and it can be argued that the idea of saving a soul before life unintentionally evokes pro-life rhetoric. Broadly for me, there just wasn't the right connection. Tina Fey as 22 didn't feel like a very strong performance or casting (she almost feels like an obligation—we had Poehler in Inside Out, so it has to be Fey here...ignoring that Poehler worked because she was right for the part) and honestly, 22 feels like a character who takes away a lot from Joe's arc, with Joe learning things from watching her experiences on Earth...but why isn't he having them firsthand and being more active? I didn't really feel like either character was complete enough to feel for, so if both were folded into Joe with a story more centered on him participating in his own life, I'd probably have been more invested.
I like the film's aesthetics and imagination quite a lot, but they just didn't cover a very strong emotional core for me.
An intriguing film that doesn't quite land it for me.
I really loved Pete Docter's film Inside Out, and the imaginative abstract world and emotional elements seemed to be a big part of this film, too.
Joe Gardner is a music teacher who feels he caved to his mother and settled for a reliable job that doesn't let him use his passion for jazz to its fullest. When a former student offers him a gig with a legendary band, however, he goes to try out—and dies on his way there by falling in a manhole.
As a soul, Joe is going to the Great Beyond, but he refuses and escapes to the Great Before, where souls are going to get personality traits and be assigned to human bodies. Joe poses as a mentor for 22, a soul who's never found her spark to go down to Earth, and his tutelage takes them back to Earth in the wrong bodies when they try to get spiritual assistance.
I do really like the film's atmosphere. The city in the real world is so detailed, and the soul realms are abstract, colorful, and excellently scored. There's humor and concepts reminiscent of The Good Place, too. I also like aspects of what the film has to say about passion and purpose and the meaning of life.
However, there wasn't an immersive connection for me, and the film has awkward elements that are worth considering. For example, the story follows an unfortunate pattern of black leads in animated films spending a lot of the time transformed outside their own black bodies, and it can be argued that the idea of saving a soul before life unintentionally evokes pro-life rhetoric. Broadly for me, there just wasn't the right connection. Tina Fey as 22 didn't feel like a very strong performance or casting (she almost feels like an obligation—we had Poehler in Inside Out, so it has to be Fey here...ignoring that Poehler worked because she was right for the part) and honestly, 22 feels like a character who takes away a lot from Joe's arc, with Joe learning things from watching her experiences on Earth...but why isn't he having them firsthand and being more active? I didn't really feel like either character was complete enough to feel for, so if both were folded into Joe with a story more centered on him participating in his own life, I'd probably have been more invested.
I like the film's aesthetics and imagination quite a lot, but they just didn't cover a very strong emotional core for me.