When Joe and 22 get back to his apartment, he gets a call from Curley saying that Dorothea freaked out upon seeing him and gave the gig to another guy. Although Joe is thankful, he has higher aspirations. 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. 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). Well hello, Mr. 22 follows Joe begrudgingly through the life of the doctor he is pretending to be, until 22 shows Joe that he can pull up images of his own life. 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. 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. In New York City, Joe Gardner is an aspiring jazz musician currently working as a band teacher. They are sent back to the Great Beyond by a determined soul counter named Terry who noticed that the soul count was off. Those who are ready can jump down a hole that will take them to their Earth bodies. In Soul, after the usual note which reads "Created and produced at Pixar Animation Studios, Emeryville, California," there was an extra line. The movie was co-directed and co-written by one of Pixar's longest-serving creatives, Pete Docter and Kemp Powers. 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. Warning: You may lose the entire afternoon reading old spoilers! There, they encounter Joe’s rival Paul (Daveed Diggs), who makes snide comments toward Joe. He returns to the Great Before by passing through The Zone and goes to find 22, who has become a Lost Soul. While Soul leaves viewers with at least some idea that Joe’s future is headed toward a happy ending, 22’s future is more unclear. With Paul Giamatti, Emily Watson, Dina Korzun, Armand Schultz. The former director previously helmed Monsters Inc, Up and Inside Out, winning Best Animated Feature for the latter two movies. How Pixar’s afterlife movie ‘Soul’ is giving us life at the end of a dreadful 2020. Joe and 22 stop by to see Moonwind so he can return Joe to his body, but 22 has realized that she has enjoyed life in the short time that she has had a body. Joe then takes a leaf that 22 had been mesmerized by when she was in his body, as it is a small but memorable thing for her that drove her desire to live. The Soul Collector delivers something different and something quite mysterious, which held my investment right till the end. (Joe's mother, played by Phylicia Rashad, is not supportive of his music.) The top grossing countries were China ($25.8 million), Taiwan ($2.3 million) and Vietnam ($793,000). He guides lost souls to their bodies and brings Joe to his body, which is lying in a coma in the hospital. After a heartfelt discussion, Libba says she has always supported Joe even if she thought his dreams were out of reach. In its opening weekend, Soul grossed $7.6 million from ten countries, including $5.5 million from China. 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. It's mainly about how things happen in these films, rarely about what happens. Joe guides 22 to the Earth portal and gives her back her badge. Even the negative experiences like on the subway made her feel more exhilarated than she has ever felt. While trying to get home, Joe is horrified when Dorothea and Curley see his body in a hospital gown wandering the streets. We know she gets a second chance at life on Earth, but Soul doesn’t offer up a final payoff that hints at the direction she might be headed. In order to get back and avoid heading to the Great Beyond, Joe poses as a mentor to a rebellious soul called 22, who refuses to get a life like the … He is informed by other souls that they are headed to the Great Beyond now that their time on Earth is done. After getting through to her, Joe helps her go to Earth so that she may have a body of her own. The two freak out, but Joe talks to 22 so that she will not make him look crazy. 22 decides that she loves pizza, and Joe also swipes her a gyro. They also find Lost Souls, the kinds of souls who never found a purpose and became consumed with negative thoughts. They hop in a cab and make it back home before anything else happens. 22 feels surprised at having been able to influence someone else. Soul filmmakers reveal the original ending of the Pixar movie. Soul came out on Disney Plus on Christmas Day, meaning it is finally available for fans to watch in people’s homes. "Soul" director Pete Docter, codirector Kemp Powers, and producer Dana Murray told Entertainment Tonight there was an original ending of the movie. Joe tells his mother, a seamstress named Libba (Phylicia Rashad). They try to find Moonwind’s location that he had mentioned, which is in the middle of Manhattan, but when they get out there, 22 is overwhelmed by life and people. If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read beyond this picture of Jerry and Terry being fabulous. He eventually pushes himself through the wall surrounding the stairs, and he falls into a realm called The Great Before. That's what life on earth is for.". "); and a reference to Charles Drew, a Black physician credited with pioneering the blood transfusion. Joe then prepares to head to the Great Beyond, until Jerry A stops him and says that the Jerrys were all impressed with Joe’s actions and the fact that he was the one who got 22 to want to live. Soul: Jamie Foxx stars in trailer for Disney Pixar film. She refuses to give up Joe’s body, leading him to have to chase her down into the subway. Nominated for Three NAACP Image Awards, Debuts Exclusive Music Video for Show Me Your Soul by Robert Glasper and Lalah Hathaway, On the Graceful Work of Composer Emile Mosseri, Book Excerpt: This is How You Make a Movie by Tim Grierson, Paramount+ Launches with New Shows, Deep Catalog. Soul (2020) Soul. Despite its weighty themes, the project has a light touch. “We storyboarded a bunch of … Joe is elated at having scored a dream gig. He is then called out of class by Principal Arroyo (Jeannie Tirado), who offers Joe a full-time band teaching job. 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. 2020 has been a complete disaster for movies, on top of all the other things it has been a disaster for, but it managed to scrounge up a miracle in its last days: Pixar Animation Studios is alive and well. He finds 22 crying alone as she remembers all her past mentors, including Joe, telling her that she will never find her purpose. Joe thinks he still has a chance to redeem himself if he shows up to the gig anyway, but he was to look presentable. He helps Joe get back to the Great Before, only to find that 22 has quickly turned into a monstrous Lost Soul. 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. Soul soundtrack – everything you need to know about the music for the Pixar film. 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. 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. Joe Gardner is about to find his." When a dream gig finally lands his way, Joe accidentally falls down a manhole and has his soul separated from his body. Possibly, although Woody in the "Toy Story" films seemed to have a touch of that affliction as well. Jerry B explains that finding her spark wasn’t finding her purpose, but just the reason for her and other souls to want to live. 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. Although 22's Earth Pass badge has been filled out, Joe says it doesn't count because she did everything through his body. Joe and 22 go to speak to her, which leads to Joe blurting out (and 22 repeatings) that Libba never supported Joe in his ambitions. He meets a counselor named Jerry A (Alice Braga), who takes him on a tour of the place where other souls who haven’t been given a life yet are brought before they can go to Earth. Use the Search Bar or "Tag Cloud" below to find an interesting spoiler! 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. A birthday card could've told you that. Videos you watch may be added to the TV's watch history and influence TV recommendations. During the set, Joe starts off a bit shaky but soon starts to wow the rest of the band by improvising the notes and playing a soulful tune. Joe tries everything he can think of to see if it will inspire 22, but nothing impresses her. The film opens in a middle school where music teacher Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) is instructing an uninterested and untalented class. 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 darkness disappears from around her. Everyone is impressed by her thoughts, and she even manages to zing Paul when he makes another snobbish comment. 22, speaking as Joe, talks to her on a level she can understand, and although she seems to encourage Connie to quit, the girl changes her mind after playing a trombone piece that she had been working on. Even after Joe gives an impassioned speech about how he first became enamored with jazz music, the students seem unimpressed. In order to get back and avoid heading to the Great Beyond, Joe poses as a mentor to a rebellious soul called 22, who refuses to get a life like the rest of the souls. And, most importantly, the sound design is also quite impacting and powerful for those … He learns from Jerry A that if he does not want to go to the Great Beyond, he can take a position as a mentor to other souls so that they can earn their Earth Pass and gain a life. 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. 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 returns to his apartment feeling bad about what happened with 22. 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." Paul is an actor who feels bogged down by his participation in a … They have decided to allow Joe to return to his body, and they will even keep it a secret from Terry by not letting her know the count is off and making her believe it’s fine. 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. With Soul now streaming on Disney+, Docter, co-director Kemp Powers and producer Dana Murray discuss Soul's alternate endings, the gags that didn't make it into the movie … Joe refuses to accept his death after getting the shot of his life, so he tries running down the staircase, but more and more souls start coming up. Soul. Rated PG Of course. He goes as far as he can with her as they say goodbye so that she can finally have her own body. AMC THEATERS - LOEWS CINEPLEX - REGAL CINEMAS - CENTURY THEATERS. which stuck most of its 20th Century Fox repertory holdings in a "vault" last year, Mr. Have you ever seen a Pixar film before? He is so excited that he does not see where he is going and ends up falling down a manhole. Joe asks Jerry B why she can’t have her own body if she found her purpose. Joe’s soul appears down a dark staircase heading toward a bright light. Despite trying to find something that 22 is passionate about, Joe finds it hopeless when she remains uninterested. After the cut, 22 goes to let Paul know there are no hard feelings. Joe attempts to jump down the hole but keeps getting sent back up. Joe then gets a phone call from a former student named Curley (Questlove), who tells him that he is playing in a band with famous jazz musician Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett), whom Joe admires. 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. Joe goes to Dorothea’s show, and despite her apprehension toward him, she gives him another chance, and Joe manages to play a stunning performance with the band. SOUL Ending Explained Breakdown, Easter Eggs, Original Endings And Full Movie Review | DISNEY. Although he plays his gig, he doesn't feel as fulfilled as he thought he would. Terry then appears after having found out Joe was the lost soul she was looking for. Joe takes the Pass and makes it back to his body in time (and Mr. Mittens reunites with his owner). *SPOILER REQUEST* 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. 22 rips Joe’s pants, and with no time to find a tailor, Joe realizes they have to go to Libba, who will not be happy to learn that he is taking a gig. Directed by Sophie Barthes. (2020) After landing the gig of a lifetime, a New York jazz pianist suddenly finds himself trapped in a strange land between Earth and the afterlife. Meanwhile, a soul counter named Terry (Rachel House) notices the count to the Great Beyond is off. When he gets to the shop, he finds out from Libba’s coworkers that she already knows about the job. She decides to support the gig, and she gives Joe his father’s old suit. Jerry B (Richard Ayoade) pairs Joe, who is passing off as a renowned psychologist, with 22 (Tina Fey), a rebellious soul who has gone through many famous mentors (including Abe Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, Copernicus, Mother Teresa, etc) but has never found a desire to get a life on earth. Is this the first midlife crisis movie released by Pixar? As Joe prepares to jump back in, he accidentally pulls 22 down with him and they both fall down the soul hole. for thematic elements and some language. The ultimate message in #SoulMovie is so necessary. Soul! Before the Jerrys can attempt to throw Joe back toward the Great Beyond, 22 tells them they are getting close to finding her purpose for life. If playback doesn't begin shortly, try restarting your device. 22 only goes there to mess with people (such as the New York Knicks). Hurt, she gives him the Pass to return to Earth. She is more proud of him getting this job than she is of him pursuing a career as a jazz musician, thinking it is a waste of time. She leaves him with some parting words of advice to let him think on. Help keep the spoilers up to date by sending your submissions here. 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. Joe tries to help 22 get ready by cutting the hair on his own head, but he slips and cuts down the middle of his hair before the electric razor breaks. 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). Producer Dana Murray, along with directors Pete Docter and Kemp Powers, have now revealed Soul's original ending, and it would have left Jamie Foxx's Joe … When Dorothea offers him a chance to go on tour with them, Joe admits that he doesn’t feel the way he expected to feel after all that. Joe hopes to use 22's Earth Pass to get back to his body. Joe then promises to really live his life to the fullest. Curley says there is an opening for a piano player if he is interested, and Joe shows up immediately. The Great Before is a bit like the setting of Albert Brooks' metaphysical comedy "Defending Your Life." Hurt by his words, she throws the Pass at him and retreats. Joe and 22 are found by Moonwind (Graham Norton), a soul who lives as a man on Earth who works as a sign twirler. 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. Joe tries to reach out to her, only to be trapped in her cloud of negativity. Son of Saul (Hungarian: Saul fia) is a 2015 Hungarian drama film directed by László Nemes, in his feature directorial debut, and co-written by Nemes and Clara Royer.It is set in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, and follows a day-and-a-half in the life of Saul Ausländer (played by Géza Röhrig), a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando. 22 is now inside Joe’s body. The two then resolve to get 22’s Earth Pass to activate so that she can give it to Joe for him to return to Earth, and so she won’t have to get a life. Joe awakens to find himself back on Earth…only it is in the body of a therapy cat called Mr. Mittens. Your guide to the latest plot twists and surprise endings, now playing at a theater near you! While Joe tries to get Moonwind to put him back, 22 starts to experience life through Joe's eyes and finds beauty in the little things. She is upset to be in a human body, but they resolve to work together to get out of this situation. I'm not convinced it adds up to all much in the grand scheme by the time the final sequence arrives. Soul movie cast: Who is the voice of The Accountant? They eventually find Moonwind at his job, where he tells them to meet at a specific location at 6:30 later that day for Joe to return to his body. When a dream gig finally lands his way, Joe accidentally falls down a manhole and has his soul separated from his body. While seeing flashbacks, Joe feels as though he accomplished nothing in his life, and this is why he feels he has to get back to his body and make something of himself. With Soul now streaming on Disney+, Docter, co-director Kemp Powers and producer Dana Murray discuss Soul 's alternate endings, the gags that didn't make it into the movie … They grant him his body back, and Joe promises to live his life to the fullest. 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. Pixar's latest animated feature debuted on … As Joe prepares to go to the Great Beyond, one of the soul guides, Jerry A, notes that she and the other Jerrys were impressed by Joe's actions and the fact that he got 22 to want to live. 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. Joe finds his body but accidentally brings 22 to Earth with him, leading her to go inside his body while he is stuck in a therapy cat called Mr. Mittens. 22 then takes Joe to a soul guide called Moonwind, as he is alive on Earth, but his soul passes through "The Zone" where impassioned people on Earth have their souls connect between the physical and spiritual realms. 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." 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 … The Jerrys then see that 22’s Earth Pass has been filled since she found her spark, but Joe argues that it doesn’t count because she did all that through his body. MAJOR SPOILERS for SOUL, so consider yourself warned. Terry catches them through one of her traps, sending them back to the Great Before. 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! The film imagines a "Great Before," where souls find their "spark" before joining the mortal coil and being born as babies on Earth. One that’s so … Justin Tinsley @JustinTinsley. Tagline Soul is the 23rd Pixar film, and is directed by Pete Docter and produced by Dana Murray.1 It was first announced on June 19, 2019. https://decider.com/2020/12/29/soul-ending-explained-22-spark The only exception appears to be a trombone-playing girl named Connie (Cora Champommier), who does her own solo but seems to feel embarrassed afterward. It's also shot well, even during quite dark scenes. The studio drafted in some big names to score and soundtrack the new film. However, to get into it, we're going to have to throw up a SPOILER WARNING for the end of Soul. "Everyone has a soul. They ride the subway, where 22 experiences an angry New Yorker yelling at her. 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 animated Christmas Day Disney+ release with a few lingering questions. Joe feels remorse for what he did and he approaches her. When we ask about how the Soul ending evolved, Docter revealed an original vision for the ending had Joe running into 22 again… at school. She hides until Joe goes to swipe a slice of pizza and give her her first taste of food. If you did, you likely know how the film ends, with Joe (Jamie Foxx) returning to Earth after spending most of the film in "the Great Before." 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." 22, still speaking for him, talks to Dez and the other clients about her thoughts on life and how far it has taken her to this point. The prologue peaks with Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) falling into an open manhole and ending up comatose in a hospital. As he plays music to himself, he returns to The Zone and reunites with Moonwind. It was originally supposed be released on June 19, 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was delayed to November 20, 2020,2 and was released on December 25, 2020 on Disney+3. Can Joe break the streak and help her find her purpose? The original ending for Disney's latest Pixar effort, Soul, saw Joe ending up in a very different place from what was eventually seen in the movie. Dorothea is impressed and tells Joe to show up for soundcheck later that night. To do this, Joe needs to help 22 find her “spark” that will activate the pass. When Moonwind prepares to return Joe to normal, 22 refuses to give up his body. 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. MEGHAN Markle's Suits co-star Patrick Adams has branded the Royal Family "shameless" and said their treatment of the Duchess of Sussex has been "obscene" in … And yet, "Cars" and its various derivatives aside, Pixar has never released a flat-out bad film. Joe attends a You Seminar for the young souls where they may get personalities before getting the Earth Pass. 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. She instead takes Joe to a place called “The Zone”, a realm between the physical and spiritual where artists, musicians, or athletes appear when they are inspired and impassioned. She accidentally snags Paul but returns his soul to his body, but still makes him uncomfortable by trying to explain herself. Joe then tells 22 to go to his local barber, Dez (Donnell Rawlings). They are then interrupted when Connie goes to Joe’s apartment to tell him she wants to quit band.