I’m not the biggest fan of jazz so I didn’t think for the first 10 minutes of this movie I would enjoy it, but then we got to the real meat of the story and it blew me away.

Soul follows a guy called Joe who ends up in a coma after an accident and he starts heading towards the afterlife when he manages to go in a different direction where he can become a mentor for souls who need a bit more help then the usual ones. Normal souls just get their Earth pass, complete their personalities, and be able to live life, however these need a bit more training. Joe is paired with a soul called 22 who has had many pairings and has never found her real purpose but that is until Joe and 22 accidentally end up on Earth with 22 in Joe’s body and Joe in the body of a cat (are you keeping up? It’s confusing if you haven’t seen it!).

This movie was really deep but in a way that made it seem family friendly. It talked about life and death but it was still a kids movie that kids could enjoy. It had funny moments and strange moments but the underlying message can really hit home to a lot of adults I think.

Joe’s whole mentality was that he has to become a jazz singer. He’s been offered a permanent role as a music teacher but he doesn’t want that, he wants to be a jazz musician, and so when he gets a chance to finally realise his dream he actually comes to realise that when you’re always chasing something either you’re always going to be disappointed because you’ll never get it or one day you’ll get it and it just won’t be what you expect.

This movie tells you that while it’s good to have ambition and drive what really matters in life is making the most of what you have at that very moment. One of the characters said a line about a fish that went to another fish saying ‘they want to find the ocean’ and the second fish tells them ‘they’re already in the ocean’ and the first fish responds with ‘no this is just water’ which shows that people are always striving for something and never realising what is around them at that moment in time.

I absolutely adore that quote. I think it’s brilliant and such a good mantra to live by, to remember that yes you may want to keep striving towards your dreams, but you shouldn’t be missing out on the life that’s around you while trying to achieve that. This life that you have is brilliant in its own ways from the food you can eat to how you’re living and who you’re spending your time with. There’s so many little things that you should be so grateful for and unfortunately all those things can be so easily looked over because you’re always wondering what’s next.

I think this is a brilliant movie to start anyone’s 2021 with, to make them realise and remember what’s really important and how we should take nothing that we have in our life for granted and we should be so grateful for what we have. For even just surviving 2020 we should be so proud of ourselves for that because it’s such an enormous feat! We can go into 2021 and want more and pursue more but we should also remember what we’ve gone through and what has brought us to this moment and be so grateful for what we have.

While I wasn’t sure this movie would be one for me I really did enjoy it and I know it will stick with me for a while longer. So if you haven’t seen it I urge you to watch it immediately and take this movie and its morals along with you into this year and through your life just to make sure that you’re not just hoping for a better tomorrow but you’re making the most of what you have today as well.

What did you think of Soul?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding