Joe, a jazzman like his late father, is at a crossroads. Not younger — although we don’t know precisely how previous — he makes a residing instructing music to middle-schoolers whereas chasing after gigs. His mom (Phylicia Rashad) worries about his prospects. A full-time job provide and an opportunity to take a seat in with a band led by an A-list saxophonist (Angela Bassett) arrive on the identical day, which additionally seems to be the final day of Joe’s life.
Form of. The sheer inventiveness of “Soul” makes it not possible to spoil, however as a result of it’s devoted to shock, to the improvisational qualities of existence, I wish to tread evenly. Suffice it to say that Joe finds himself immediately transported from Manhattan to a limbo the place he meets a rebellious soul often known as 22, who speaks within the voice of Tina Fey.
Not but assigned to a particular human kind, 22 has chosen that voice for its annoying qualities, and she or he has spent a lot of eternity driving everybody loopy — apart from the Jerrys, who possess infinite persistence (and communicate within the soothing tones of Wes Studi, Alice Braga and Richard Ayoade). There’s additionally somebody known as Terry (Rachel Home), the resident bean counter, who’s a pricklier character, and as a lot of a villain as this light, melancholy fantasy wants.
Anyway, 22 doesn’t see the purpose of happening to Earth to take up residence in a physique. Joe is determined to get again into his, and their conflicting, complementary needs ship them again to Earth in a switched-identity caper. Every one is the opposite’s wacky sidekick, and every teaches the opposite some priceless classes.
The didacticism of the film is honest, not unwelcome, and inseparable from its artistry. Jazz, removed from being incidental to “Soul,” is integral to its argument about how magnificence is created, sustained and appreciated — and to its grounding of a particularly Black expertise in New York.
Joe’s enjoying is energetic and serene, and it carries him right into a zone that’s wittily literalized as an space between Earth and the spirit world. (Different guests to this liminal area embody a street-corner mystic named Moonwind, voiced by Graham Norton.) Jon Batiste’s beautiful jazz compositions take turns with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s delicate, cerebral rating, constructing a sonic bridge between the sensual and the summary, the bodily and the metaphysical.