Watch This Movie To Help Find The Beauty In Everyday Life
We all know that life can be traumatic, scary, frustrating, and sometimes even unfulfilling, forcing us to look around and wonder to ourselves, “What the heck is this all about, anyway?”
Relationships fail, dreams go unrealized, friends and loved ones come and go, yet we all keep moving along side-by-side with one another, hoping against hope our personal situations improve for the better.
But if Pixar’s sweeping fantasy epic Soul proves anything, it’s that there’s beauty and merit to being able to slow down and actually enjoy life, allowing us to cherish every moment rather than hurriedly race through our days. By simply remaining in tune to our daily lives, Soul shows us that each of us can truly embrace the small moments that make life worth living, whether that means savoring the company of a close friend or treasuring a career you never knew you wanted.
Joe Gardner’s Dead … Well, Not Exactly
Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) is a part-time music teacher who dreams of one day becoming a professional jazz musician in New York City. Diligently improving his musical skills, Joe eventually receives the chance of a lifetime when he’s offered to join a professional ensemble quartet. Sadly, his plans for the future come to a screeching halt when he falls down an open manhole, cutting his life short just when it seemed ready to truly transform into something spectacular.
Whisked away to the afterlife, Joe tries to escape from “The Great Beyond” he’s currently inhabiting, only to wind up in “The Great Before,” a learning environment where new souls develop their interests and personalities before being transported to Earth. Meeting with a rebellious soul named 22 (Tina Fey), Joe convinces his spiritual counterpart to help him return to life, giving him another chance to step foot back into his body and reclaim the life he tragically left behind.
In true Pixar fashion, Soul tackles plenty of weighty themes and issues over the course of its fast-moving hour and 40-minute runtime, including existential questions about the purpose of life, the inevitability of death, and the chance for personal growth and redemption. In spite of these philosophical discussions, Soul never loses its undeniable charm as a worthwhile animated film, lulling both younger and older viewers alike with its vibrant visuals, colorful humor, and outstanding voice cast.
But at the end of the day, it’s the key lessons Soul teaches us that make this 2020 so singularly fantastic in the first place, helping it rise to the same level as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, or Coco before it. Rarely pulling any punches in its existential story, Soul instead emphasizes the importance of seizing each moment as though it were our last – which, in the case of so many of us, it very well might be.
The Subtle Beauty of “Soul” and the Lessons It Teaches Us
At the end of the day, the success of Soul lies both in its unique story and its meaningful lessons about life and death. In regards to the former, Soul has no shortage of standout moments that make it an undeniably entertaining movie the whole family will enjoy. Like Inside Out or Monsters, Inc., its vivid narrative and meticulously thought-out settings easily afford viewers a chance to step into “The Great Beyond,” bewildering and delighting viewers who – like Joe – are experiencing these whimsical environments for the first time.
But rather than immersing itself too deeply into its magical settings, Soul always manages to ground its central story in emotionally relevant topics, never losing sight of the important lessons at the heart of the film. Once they’ve initially managed to return to Earth, for example, Joe and 22 individually manage to realize how meaningful otherwise mundane experiences might be in everyday life, from conversing with a friend, coworker, or student to simply listening to good music.
Through this heartfelt depiction, Soul shows us that life isn’t all about the “big moments,” like obtaining our long aspired-after career or personal ambitions for the future. It’s about the here and now, with the seemingly ordinary experiences we take for granted actually giving life its meaning.
As Soul teaches us, we can waste our whole lives looking ahead towards the future, blindly navigating through each day as weeks, months, years, even decades pass by without our noticing it. Instead, the one true way to enjoy life is simply living, never losing sight of even the most trivial things we experience on a daily basis, be it eating food, feeling the wind on our face, or twirling the heck out of a 50% off promotional store sign.
Watch Soul on Disney+.
