As life-affirming and unabashedly profound as it is cerebrally curious and gorgeously animated, Pete Docter’s Soul is yet another Pixar masterwork. Easily the best output from the once-flawless studio since 2015’s Inside Out (also directed by Docter), Soul also ranks amongst Pixar’s best work to date, putting it in league with Toy Story 3, Ratatouille, Up, and Wall-E. Since their acquisition by Disney, Pixar has placed an increased focus on franchising, churning out decent-enough sequels but letting the once limitless creativity that once defined them fall by the wayside. As sequels began to dominate their slate, that spark of creativity dimmed. Though he hadn’t changed, that little Pixar light had a little less bounce in him. Expectations of grandeur lowered in sync. With Inside Out, Pixar nouveau reasserted themselves as a house of bold choices that played to the adults in the audience just as much as the children and Soul affirms this direction with its every fiber.

A spiritual sequel of sorts to that story of a young Minnesota hockey player displaced to San Francisco and the anthropomorphic emotions which ran the control board in her mind, Soul uses the idea of little ethereal beings that live inside us to explore the idea of purpose and the meaning of life. Joe Gardner (voiced by Jaime Foxx) may work as a middle-school band teacher but is left unfulfilled by his day job. A talented jazz pianist, he dreams of gigging with the greats but life has largely passed him by and his career never took off in directions that he hoped or expected. When he finally gets the opportunity of a lifetime to play alongside a saxophone giant of the industry, Joe has an untimely run-in with fate that sends his soul careening into an out-of-body limbo.

There he meets Twenty-Two (voiced by Tina Fey), a persnickety and defiant old soul who has no interest in living a life and, due to a bureaucratic mixup, is charged with being her mentor. Desperate to return to his corporeal form, Joe is tasked with inspiring his disinterested charge, earning her a one-way ticket to being alive that he plans to snatch so that he may grift his way back to his body.

Endeavoring to explore something as thematic towering as the meaning of life, Soul is one of Pixar’s weightiest efforts to date. There’s a deep sense of sadness and regret that percolates the picture, with the script from Docter, Kemp Powers, and Mike Jones arguably appealing more towards the adults in the audience than those too young to have flirted with losing their spark of life. As Joe undergoes an It’s a Wonderful Life-like tour of his own accomplishments (or lack-thereof), Soul challenges notions of what makes a life fulfilling and worth living and prods at ideas of merit and sorrow in a way that few animated mega-movies would ever dream.

Pangs of emotion come thick and they come heavy but Soul has a playfulness to it that cannot be denied. In the “You Seminar” laboratory where young souls are imbued with their defining characteristics, this is particularly in focus. There, omnipotent bureaucrats (all of whom are named Jerry) zap personality into absorbent little blue balls of soul, sending them through stations to become “aloof”, “intelligent”, or “self-involved”, the latter of which one Jerry remarks they have sent too many through of late.

It is worth noting that Soul marks Pixar’s first Black protagonist and that equity extends beyond the scope of the story with newcomer Kemp Powers taking on co-director responsibilities, a predominantly Black voice cast that features the likes of Angela Bassett, Quest Love, Richard Ayoade, and Daveed Diggs and Black creative talent all the way down the credits list. Soul revels in its Blackness, digging into that aspect of its character and characters rather than using diversity as a window dressing, which only serves to give it a greater sense of purpose, personality, and genuineness.

Underscoring the emotional and storytelling feats, Soul is a technical marvel that revels in making bold choices. From a visual standpoint, the Picasso-esque continuous-line squiggle that is the Jerrys is both a throwback to simpler animation and a point of contrast for the stunningly-realized computer wizardry on display. The crispness and vibrancy of the image are at times startlingly photorealistic but never ventures into the uncanny valley, the lifelikeness of a trombone is a particular instance where my brain was tricked into confusing the animated for the real. So too are the settings particularly mind-boggling, Soul bringing the bustle of Queens alive with such texture and sensation that you can also feel and smell the streets coming to life.

Another bold and inspired choice comes in giving soundtrack duties over to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network) who score the feature with a mix of their signature angsty digital soundscapes and a fresh jazzy looseness. In a film characterized by being extra ordinary, their score is amongst the most extraordinary elements and further marks them as kings of their craft.

Building on ideas of self-worth and finding your lot in life, Soul builds and builds into an emotional powerhouse that actively challenges audiences to look inside themselves. Moreso than any other film this year, Soul affected me greatly and made me examine who I am, where I’m going and where I want to be someday; an incredibly feat for a movie that also features a talking orange tabby cat. Though the film flirts with tragedy and apathy, nihilism doesn’t exist within the Pixar vocabulary and so Soul uses the framework of a soul losing its way to inspire a true mission of self-discovery, both within Joe and the audience watching his story unfold.

CONCLUSION: A remarkable achievement that lifts up and celebrates the human spirit, ‘Soul’ ranks amongst Pixar’s best works and charters a life-affirming mission to the great beyond that’s sure to leave audiences peering deep within themselves.