What makes you… you? That very question is the ethos behind Disney and Pixar’s movie Soul, now in theaters. The film follows Joe Gardner (voice of Jamie Foxx), a middle school band teacher with a passion for jazz. His life takes a series of unexpected turns, beginning with the chance to play with Dorothea Williams (voice of Angela Bassett) at the hottest jazz club in town. The next unexpected turn comes when he trips and falls into a manhole (after narrowly avoiding half a dozen other disasters!), taking him from New York City to The Great Before, a mystical place where souls find their sparks.
Feeling cheated, Joe refuses to accept his fate after arriving in The Great Before. Determined to return to his life on Earth, he teams up with 22 (voice of Tina Fey), who doesn’t get the appeal of the human experience. As he tries to show 22 what’s so great about living, Joe just might find the answers to questions he’d never thought to ask before.
In addition to being culturally and musically diverse, the film is a visual masterpiece that paints the real and soul worlds in distinct strokes, as the stunning concept art below shows:
