As they run through a subway station, Terry traps them both and brings them back to the Great Before. After Joe tells 22 that her experiences were not purposes, 22 refuses and flees to find her spark with Joe tailing behind. Meanwhile, Terry, a being in charge of counting souls, arrives on earth to find Joe and restore the count.Īs the day ends, Joe and 22 visit Moonwind to return Joe to his body. She holds poignant conversations with his student Connie, his barber Dez, and mother. In the meantime, 22 settles into Joe's body and enjoys small moments while interacting with Joe's peers.
They find Moonwind, who agrees to meet at the jazz club to restore Joe to his body. They mistakenly enter the wrong bodies - with 22 inhabiting Joe's body and Joe inhabiting the body of a therapy cat. Joe returns to Earth but accidentally carries 22 with him. They meet Moonwind-a galleon captain-who helps the duo locate Joe's body on Earth. After Joe fails to find 22 a spark, they visit " the zone", a place that souls can enter when their passions create a euphoric trance, but becomes a trap for obsessed, lost souls. She agrees to let Joe help find her "spark" - a soul's personal passion - to complete her badge so he can use it to return home. 22 discovers that Joe's physical body is hospitalized and in a coma. Mistaken for a mentor, Joe is assigned to train a soul named 22, who wants to avoid Earth. Each soul has a badge that grants passage to Earth, once the badge is completely filled with personality traits. In the Great Before, counselors - all named Jerry - prepare unborn souls for life with the help of mentor souls. Unwilling to die, he tries to escape but ends up in the " Great Before" - a realm where souls gain personalities and interests before being born on Earth. Joe finds himself as a disembodied soul heading into an afterlife dubbed the " Great Beyond". As Joe heads off, his excitement distracts him, and he falls down a manhole into the sewers. Impressed with Joe's piano playing, Dorothea hires him for that night's show. Joe learns famous jazz musician Dorothea Williams has an opening in her quartet and auditions at a jazz club. When he receives an offer for a full-time teaching position, his mother Libba urges him to accept it. In New York City, pianist Joe Gardner teaches music class part-time at a middle school while dreaming of playing jazz professionally. Soul was nominated for three awards at the 93rd Academy Awards season, winning two, and received numerous accolades. Organizations like the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute named the film as one of the top 10 films of 2020.
Soul was well-received by critics for its craftsmanship, story, characters, and musical score.
Soul was released direct-to-streaming on Disney+ on December 25, 2020, and in theaters in countries without the streaming service. However, the feature was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Soul premiered at the London Film Festival on October 11, 2020, and was scheduled to be theatrically released on June 19 and November 20. It is the first Pixar film to feature a Black lead. Production on Soul lasted for four years on an approximate $150 million budget.
Apart from Batiste's original jazz compositions, musicians Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composed the film's score. The film's producers consulted various jazz musicians including, Herbie Hancock and Terri Lyne Carrington, and animated its musical sequences using the sessions of musician Jon Batiste as a reference. It follows a pianist, Joe Gardner (Foxx), who is involved in an accident before his big break as a jazz musician and seeks to reunite his separated soul and body.ĭocter conceived Soul in January 2016, examining the origins of human personalities and the concept of determinism. The film stars the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad, Donnell Rawlings, Questlove, and Angela Bassett. The film was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Kemp Powers (in his feature directorial debut), and produced by Dana Murray, with a screenplay written by Docter, Powers, and Mike Jones. Soul is a 2020 American computer-animated comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.