What is your spark? What is your reason for living? Are you chasing the next big thing? Are you determined to succeed or terrified you’ll fail? Where does the Creator fall into your inspiration? This month, Eve and I take a trip into Disney’s existential philosophy with the new movie Soul.
Soul tells the story of Joe Gardner, a part-time middle school band teacher who dreams of hitting the big time as a pianist in the Improvisational Black Music scene. He finally gets his shot when he gets an offer to play as part of the great Dorothea William’s quartet. His plans take a turn when he falls down an open manhole, and his disembodied soul ends up on the path the Great Beyond. Joe decides that his only way back to his body is to beat the system and use a pre-born soul’s “earth pass.” It’s not that easy, though. He stumbles into a mentorship role for the hard-case, progress-resistant soul “22.” Can Joe lead 22 to find her spark, complete her pass, and then take it all away?
Pete Docter and Kemp Powers directed Soul with a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. There is also a liberal sprinkling of music by Jazz pianist Jon Batiste throughout the movie.
First Impressions
At the start of the movie, Joe’s situation is reminiscent of the 1995 Richard Dreyfuss movie, Mr. Holland’s Opus. Joe Gardner is a “real” musician who is forced to teach middle-school band to pay the bills. What he wants to do, is play jazz, though. It takes a wild, trippy turn, though when Joe has an accident that sets him on the path to the Great Beyond, and he decides he’s not ready yet. Therein lies the rub. Soul dives into the before and after-life philosophy but does so with such an odd presentation of what that might be that it loses us entirely. Rather than draw from world religions, it seems to generate its generic ideas of the afterlife to avoid insulting people (other than Christians).
Soul is a bit like Inside-Out, where it seeks to deal with ideas and concepts that the average child would not normally encounter. Where Inside-Out does it through the eyes of an 11-year-old peer, Soul seems to expect the target audience to relate to this middle-aged music teacher. But Joe is unrelatable for most of the movie. When he finally does come to his redemptive arch, it feels artificial by not adequately addressing the attitudes and actions that made him unpalatable. Still, there are more than a few comically entertaining bits, including a “Freaky-Friday”-esque bit where Joe accidentally inhabits a cat rather than his own body.
Much of Soul is a showcase for the music, and the jazz is enjoyable—if you enjoy jazz. If you don’t have a real appreciation of jazz, though, you’ll miss out on much of the movie’s benefit. I was personally hoping the music would play a more significant part in the film. Visually, Soul is another Pixar tour de force, showing endless creativity and thought in even the smallest of details. In this case, it is a bit dangerous, though, since it is more like the gingerbread house from the Hansel & Gretel tale—a wonder to look at and very tempting, but dangerous in its philosophies.
Overall, Eve and I disagreed on the overall redeeming value of Soul, but we both agree that the concepts and story are more likely to be harmful to children of any age if they are not considered in the light of Scripture.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
When Joe seeks to escape the Great Beyond, he finds himself in the Great Before, a.k.a. the You Seminar. This metaphysical existence is where the audience spends the majority of the metaphysical side of the story. Much of the Great Before presentation was a nonsensical mishmash of ideas that didn’t seem to belong anywhere. Mostly, the Great Before appears to throw away the entire concept of nature vs. nurture and drastically oversimplify personalities.
The You Seminar is where the preborn souls learn what their spark is. Some souls have trouble finding their spark, so they are assigned a mentor soul trying to help them find it. It appears to be a system that has worked for thousands and thousands of years—with one exception. Soul 22, just called 22 for most of the movie.
For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. (Psalm 139:13-16)
Soul embraces this cookie-cutter idea of each preborn soul getting assigned personalities and then finding their spark. Still, by doing that, they devalue the truth of humanity being created in God’s image. We—every person who has, does, or will walk the face of the Earth—are a wondrous, loved creation.
For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. (Ephesians 1:4)
Soul‘s way presents the haphazard nature of the preborn soul’s development, and eventual birth doesn’t hold water. When you consider both the abortion rate and the pre- and post-natal fatality rates worldwide, the Soul universe seems to be idyllic. The complete lack of pre-born souls on the Great Beyond’s people mover suggested that birth was not dangerous and no one had abortions.
There is an element of the Soul preborn soul creation process that did remind me of Scripture, though.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
In his instructions to Samuel regarding crown a king of Israel, the Lord tells him to no be concerned with what he looks like, but more the content of his character. The patch system in Soul does sort of ring “true-ish” here as the patches represent what is in the “heart” of the preborn soul.
Jesus answered them, “You are mistaken, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. Now concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read what was spoken to you by God: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (Matthew 22:29-32)
One implication of Soul‘s preborn souls is that they do not have a gender before they are sent to earth. This raises an interesting question as to if our genders are specific to our physical bodies. What role will genders play in our eternal, renewed bodies?
A Time to Give Birth and a Time to Die
There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: a time to give birth and a time to die. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2a)
Joe teaches music to pay the bills but really wants to be a jazz musician. Throughout the movie, Joe says a couple of times that his life has been on hold until he got his big break. “Once I get on the stage tonight, all my troubles are going to be fixed. You’re going to see a brand-new Joe Gardner.” This is a more common idea than you might think. And this is the idea that Joe decides that the “spark” is based around. The “one thing” that defines who you are. The “one thing” through which you can truly live. If you can do this “one thing,” your life will really, truly, start.
Ironically, the movie presents “Sea of Lost Souls” where people who have become obsessed and wander endlessly, pursuing the next trade or the next great find. It seems like a fragile, arbitrary line between the obsessed lost soul, the spark, and being “in the zone.” This is one of the richest topics for discussion in Soul. It ties to what God’s plan is for you.
There is a character in Soul—Dez, the barber. Joe believes that Dex was “born to be a barber.” Joe is convinced that Dez’s spark is cutting hair. We learn, along with Joe, that this isn’t the case. Dez wanted to be a veterinarian. He just went to barber school to pay the bills. But Dez found that he can still do what he loves—his real spark—as a barber. He loves to help people.
This is when the light begins to dawn for Joe—the spark that 22 needs to find may not be a passion for a thing or an activity. It may be more of a concept. And this is what 22 finds as she briefly experiences life in Joe’s body—a spark for just living. This is where Christians have it a bit easier. We live to “glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Granted, that’s not an easy target to keep in your sights, but the Word of God informs our purpose in life. It is a purpose we can pursue regardless of our circumstances. In a loving or abusive home, we can glorify God. In a thankless job or a remarkable career, we can glorify God.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:33-34)
and
What does the worker gain from his struggles? I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts. (Ecclesiastes 3:9-13)
There is where Joe fails. He seems lost in the race, his eyes focused on the goal of playing jazz that he has forgotten to enjoy both God and that which He has given. When all is said and done, though, Joe begins to understand this. When asked how he will spend his newly restored life, he replies, “I’m not sure. But I do know; I’m going to live every minute of it.”
To come to this realization, though, Joe has to come to a hard realization. He achieves his goal of landing a gig as a jazz player but begins to realize that even that will lead to the same monotony that he thought he was fleeing. He realizes that he’d been looking for the forest and completely missing all of the trees.
Commit your activities to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has prepared everything for his purpose—even the wicked for the day of disaster. (Proverbs 16:3-4)
Joe had these wonderful plans for his life but kept getting detoured to other things. The same thing happens to us. We set our sights on a goal and then get irritated when circumstances move us off that target. Having a goal—a target—is a good thing, but we have to remember that we are where we are, doing what we are doing, because that is what God intends for us, right here, right now. Even if that means it is a time to die.
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