Paul Elliott’s review published on Letterboxd:
Soul is Pixar's twenty-third feature-length animation, and it's a life-affirming and gorgeous film with Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey's voice talents displaying great comedic chemistry together. The direction from Pete Docter, who also helmed Up and Inside Out, injects plenty of spirit in an adventure which contains more than a few hues of Powell and Pressburger's classic A Matter of Life and Death.
It accounts Joe (Foxx), a musician and music teacher who has become crestfallen after his life hasn't lifted off the way he expected, falling down a maintenance hole and becomes transported to the afterlife and struggles desperately to get back to the real world. The narrative finds ingenious ways to deliver the most credible depictions of humanity and launches a vast deal of warmth as it speedily unfolds its storyline. Countless Pixar movies feature people dealing with the concept of death, significantly Up and Coco, and this film blends previously explored themes and absorbs them with a new level of inventiveness.
Regarding its animation, the colours, perspectives and the stunningly rendered commotion of New York's streets help create something extraordinary. Docter allows his direction to become broad and bizarre with his knockabout comedy and metaphysics; consequently, this might have a place as the most sidesplitting Pixar film to date. The real-world sequences are grounded in a way that instantly recognises the simple joys of life and lends a helping hand to Soul being a beautiful and heartwarming film. Pixar has outdone themselves.