By TREVIN BRANDT
Staff Writer
This past Christmas, Pixar tackled the most fundamental question of life: What is the meaning of it? The philosophical movie provided a sweet answer in a creative and endearing way.
Right after Joe Gardener (voiced by Jamie Foxx) gets the chance of a lifetime to play music for his favorite jazz group, he falls into a manhole and dies. As his soul is being transported to “The Great Beyond” Joe refuses to accept his death because in his words, “I’m not dying today, not when my life just started,” so he escapes the conveyor belt to the afterlife and enters “The Great Before.” In this place, he meets the unborn soul “22” (voiced by Tina Fey) who has no intentions of ever going to earth. But when 22 gets a chance at temporarily living inside Joe’s body, she learns that the most important things in life were the ones that had to be physically experienced such as eating pizza, listening to music, or feeling the breeze of the wind. Joe on the other hand has been stuck in tunnel-vision for most of his life. He is a part-time middle school band teacher who has a lot of things to be happy and grateful for, but his true passion–to play music for a living–has blinded him from experiencing the joy of these pivotal things in his life.
After he plays piano for the jazz show and is offered a permanent position in the band, he questions why he doesn’t feel happy. He always assumed that once he received an opportunity like this, he would never complain a day in his life again, but as he rides the subway back to his apartment, he can’t help but notice how similar his life is to before receiving the band position. What this movie says about dreams, life, and happiness is something not seen often in the mainstream. Yes, pursuing your dreams and being successful is something to look forward to, but when you spend a lifetime obsessing over it, you are going to be very disappointed with the outcome. Despite what the tunnel-vision led you to believe, it is not going to solve all of your problems or turn you into the happiest person alive overnight.
So where does happiness come from? Well, as Joe finds out later in the night in his apartment, everything 22 found purpose in–sky-watching, walking, pizza, and listening to music–are the things that truly matter. When you die, all that is going to matter is the enjoyment you experienced in the short time you were given. If you spent all of it telling yourself that you will be happy another time, you will have wasted so much time that could have been spent appreciating the joys that are all around you. The final line of the movie sums all of these ideas up in a slightly cheesy, yet pure way. When asked how Joe is going to spend the rest of his life, he responds, “I’m not sure. But I do know, I’m gonna live every minute of it.”