As I watched the movie huddled with my family for the first time in a year on my mother’s tiny tv in the tv room we grew up in. I felt… lucky. Lucky that my family hasn’t fallen apart with all that has been going on. I know not everyone has been this lucky but, for me streaming this movie and magnifying it in my own mind it felt like the time before.

Covid has taken less from me than it has for others and I am so grateful for it to have decided to skip my family. My mother has even gotten a vaccine and mine might be coming rather soon. An end to an agony of anxiety.

Soul is on the cutting edge of Pixar with a brilliant art direction. Soul is decidedly Black in a way that multiple times it hit home to an expierence I’m not always able to put into words. A lot of my original feelings about this movie and the metamorphic trope that continues to happen to black characters in animation feel unfounded with a movie like this one. But all of that went away when this movie started up and the first notes played.

You should watch Soul. The music was splendid, with each note played my heart answered. The art though exaggerated didn’t make black men out to be clowns. Which seems to be a problem for some in making animation. The animation spends time and money showing how each note is played. The city comes alive withe people of all body types and skin colors.

I think that it touches on so many of the themes I have felt thus far this year. There is no grand design and living life itself can be such a remarkable thing. I cried just whilst he was just playing My brother even called me out on it. I couldn’t help it. This movie just kept plucking my strings. Playing my heart like an instrument.

Each new idea Soul brings forth is a tantalizing string to pull. I have spent a lot of time day dreaming about their cosmos and afterlife. It has me reflecting on life itself as much as Inside Out had me thinking about what my emotional make up would be.

Recently, things that have made me cry happy tears has been when someone gets acknowledgement for something they’ve put a lot of work in. I want more moments like this in my life and seeing Joe finally get the recognition his skills was bouying in such a turbulant time. This movie was just thing to cap off that 2020 feeling.