Cold Souls (2009) User Reviews

an almost brilliant idea, almost amazing performance, and an almost terrific film

[secondtake · 7/10 · 11 June 2011]

Cold Souls (2009)

This is a concept movie, in a way, though the concept--that you can have your soul extracted and stored in a jar so that you can live without its weight--is actually a bit thin after awhile. What drives it is not something actually heavy or surreal, about having and trading real souls, but more the idea that your soul also affects, very slightly, your personality, or your talent. So really what happens is people begin to trade or borrow souls, and they acquire a little bit of the owner's qualities. And that carries along a few consequences. naturally.

Everything is presented in a deadpan comic way. The souls stored in their foot long glass jars vary greatly, some looking like creative sculptures and others like, well, a jelly bean. Or in the case of our hero, Paul Giamatti, a garbanzo bean. (The Russian half of the cast says in joyful astonishment, "a chick pea!")

Giamatti is not my favorite actor but all my friends think he's terrific and I like the type he plays, a schlumpy everyman with Homer Simpson eyes. And Giamatti, who plays a character named Paul Giamatti, makes this movie. It isn't a tour de force, an Al Pacino or Cate Blanchett jaw-dropper, though I think it's meant to be (he even has roles within roles, with his character rehearsing a stage play). To some extent his willingness to succumb to the movie's simple, clever plot is one of its charms.

There are echoes of the absurd and the playful of two earlier (and better) movies, the incredibly inventive "Being John Malkovich" and the cinematically engrossing "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Both of those are written by the astonishing Charlie Kaufman. Here the writer Sophie Barthes is working almost solo since she is also directing, and if it's solid it's also short of its potential, which unfortunately is so obvious. It's a great idea. And a rather good movie.

Different and interesting.

[Troy_Campbell · 7/10 · 27 November 2009]

Despite being easily recognizable, majority of movie-goers can't put a name to Paul Giamatti's face. His resume includes familiar films such as Saving Private Ryan, Cinderella Man, Donnie Brasco, The Truman Show, The Negotiator, Man on the Moon, My Best Friend's Wedding, The Illusionist, Planet of the Apes and this year's Duplicity. Then there are those lesser known films, that are arguably his best, like Shoot 'Em Up, Sideways and American Splendor. Cold Souls doesn't fit on either of those lists; it's too small to fit the former and not quite good enough to fit the latter.

It's hard not to keep the focus on Giamatti as here he actually plays himself, or at least a fabricated version of himself, which further adds to his enigmatic persona. The Paul Giamatti we see on screen is detached, withdrawn and filled with hopelessness. He seems to enjoy his obscurity yet yearns for more. How much does the real Giamatti have in common with this man? With a long line of sad sacks on his CV, is this art imitating life or life imitating art? One of the real treats with Cold Souls is you'll never know.

Writing and directing, Sophie Barthes has crafted a neat little Charlie Kaufman-esquire tale, although it becomes too self-knowing and important in parts. When she dabbles in dark humour it really steps up with the deadpan repartee between Giamatti and the equally ambiguous David Strathairn worth the price of admission alone. However, the subplot involving Russian soul-traffickers is boring and unwelcome. Barthes also deals with the futuristic concept cleverly; in this world it seems completely natural and it is not required to take a massive leap of faith for it to work.

A different and interesting, if not excellent, picture that is an ideal watch on DVD.

3.5 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic)

Dark yet delightful.

[nonsequitur247 · 29 March 2009]

I saw this film today as part of FSLC and MoMA's New Directors / New Films Festival. The screening was followed by a Q&A with writer/director Sophie Barthes, who openly admitted to being annoyed by comparisons between her film and Charlie Kaufman's works. Though not entirely similar, the surrealist feel of 'Souls' is bound to draw those comparisons, and even if Barthes is sick of hearing it, I have to say, I imagine that if Kaufman and Anton Chekhov decided they should write a movie together and Michel Gondry agreed to direct Paul Giamatti in it, this would be the result.

The film focuses on Giamatti, who plays a version of himself preparing to star in Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' on Broadway. He finds himself tormented by the Russian material, even though it's one of Chekhov's "lighter" plays. In search of relief, he undergoes a procedure in what looks like a modded MRI machine at the hand of Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn) which removes his chickpea-like soul from his body and freezes it temporarily until he is ready to possess it again. The B story follows a willowy Russian named Nina (Dina Korzun) who transports anonymously donated Russian souls to America using her own body as the vessel. At one point, she takes Giamatti's soul to Russia, where her boss's soap-actress wife is in need of talent and inspiration, and of course, trouble ensues.

Despite the heavy subject matter, an abundance of absurdity and wit make 'Cold Souls' amusing as well as thought-provoking. Though the tone is dark, it is not suffocatingly so--Barthes pokes fun at existential torment while seriously grappling with it at the same time. Giamatti is great as the "actor much like himself" and Strathairn and Korzun provide excellent support. The camera drifts in and out of focus in a beautiful manner throughout the film, and the French music suits the mood. The writing is solid, though the pacing is a little uneven--the film begins and wraps up a little too quickly--and the three years of hard work that Barthes poured into this clearly show.

Barthes said that she based the screenplay on a dream she had, and that while she admires Kaufman, she was more heavily influenced by Woody Allen and French Surrealists like Luis Buneal. She has infused this dark Surrealism with whimsy and absurdism to create something entirely her own, and the result prompts both pleasure and discomfort. 'Cold Souls' is definitely worth watching--I hope it's distributed as widely as it deserves to be--and Barthes is definitely a writer and director I'd watch in the future.

A great premise that turns very cold

[napierslogs · 6/10 · 27 August 2010]

"Cold Souls" begins with possibly the best premise I have seen on film. It is fitting that screenwriter Sophie Barthes was nominated for Best First Screenplay from the Independent Spirit Awards. Paul Giamatti plays Paul Giamatti, an actor struggling with the weight of Checkov. Uncle Vanya is weighing down his soul. This is a problem afflicting most New Yorkers, but there is now a solution. A company can extract your soul and keep it in storage for you. Brilliant.

The opening scenes offer some insightful humour and intelligent wit, and offers a fair number of laughs for everybody who immediately saw the comedy in the premise. David Strathairn and Giamatti have great interactions and are very funny, both together and on their own.

The rest of movie, though, plays out like a dark mystery or thriller which doesn't really fit the wonderful comedic start. The main obstacle for our hero, and the thriller plot are significantly darker and melodramatic than I was expecting. Although it is titled "Cold Souls", I was hoping for less cold and more soul-fulfilling insightful humour.

It is a dark comedy, so probably a must-see for fans of the genre. However, I think one of the problems with coming up with such an inventive idea, is viewers will likely form their own story line, so if it doesn't play out as you would have written it, it will seem disappointing and disjointed as it did for me. But that being said, the interest and intrigue behind this story would be too much to pass this up.

Chickpea Chekov

[ferguson-6 · 6/10 · 7 September 2009]

Greetings again from the darkness. I really enjoyed the originality of the basic story here, but originality is not sufficient .. this one needed some script doctoring prior to filming.

Paul Giamatti delivers another fine, hangdog, long-suffering turn as, well, Paul Giamatti. Exasperated with his general outlook on life, he does some research into the company who removes the soul from those like him. David Strathairn is the doctor at the soul removal clinic and he plays the knowledgeable, caring professional to perfection.

At different times, this one will remind of Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind, and Total Recall, it never really delivers the depth or entertainment value of any of these. It's almost as if first time feature director Sophie Barthes has so many ideas that it became more important to include them all, rather than refine the best.

As for sci-fi, this one is worth seeing, but ranks behind Moon as this year's best in the genre.

Existential Science-Fiction

[filmlover16 · 10/10 · 20 August 2009]

Cold Souls: Existential Science-Fiction by PAUL CONSTANT

If you're only reading the synopsis, it's easy to see why so many lazy critics have compared Cold Souls to Being John Malkovich: Paul Giamatti stars as an actor named Paul Giamatti, whose soul is tormented by the kind of showy existential angst that commonly strikes actors, so he visits a laboratory that he reads about in the New Yorker that specializes in the removal and storage of souls. There's enough postmodern science-fiction weirdness in that premise to superficially resemble Malkovich, but Souls is more rooted in the surrealism and social commentary of Gogol. (When the film came to SIFF in June, director Sophie Barthes remarked that the title was intended to echo Dead Souls.)

Barthes is a startlingly assured first-time director: The production values are impeccable (the soul-removal facility is all gorgeous minimalism, smooth white and glass), and she coaxes better-than-average performances out of even dependably intelligent actors like Giamatti and David Strathairn. As a soulless Giamatti hilariously tries in vain to act in a Broadway production of Uncle Vanya, he comes to understand what he has given up and then decides to pursue his missing soul to Russia. You get the sense that these locations and these concepts have never been put to film before in quite such a playfully considerate way.

It's a real pleasure to see thoughtful, satirical low-budget science fiction in an American film, especially one with such a European sensibility. This is a very literary film and a very Russian film. And, yes, if you're worried, the fact that it is literary and Russian means that it is a slow movie. But it's the very best kind of slow movie, lingering unselfconsciously on the idea of what it means to have a soul. You don't often get to see movies tackle these kinds of Big Questions with such skill and aplomb; it's undeniably refreshing.

Boring and uneven

[dschmeding · 4/10 · 26 January 2010]

Cold Souls is a movie that tries hard to be different and edgy... several movies like Being John Malkovich, Stranger than Fiction etc. come to mind. The movie is categorized as a comedy but in that department it falls flat with me. The movie basically revolves around Actor Paul Giamatti playing himself as a depressed man in a crisis. At first his character is really interesting but like the core idea it wears off really quick and at some point in the movie I got annoyed of watching his expressionless face. The concept of getting rid of your soul or buying others souls for different experience is interesting but didn't grip me. At first there is some humorous element when Giamatti is introduced to the concept of soul-extraction. But jokes like the soul looking like a chickpea or a Jellybean and Giamatti dropping it and searching for it like for a dropped contact lens left me with the feeling that this is supposed to be comedic but doesn't work at all. I was especially put off by the odd pacing of the movie introducing characters that I barely cared of, especially all those scenes in Russian without subtitles were annoying. There are some interesting visual shots in this movie but it all feels jammed in for artsy interest, so up until the sudden ending (although the movie felt endless) even those parts didn't work for me. All in all a big disappointment, although I liked Paul Giamattis work and will check out some of his other movies for sure.

Paul Giamatti awesome performance!

[daniela-atwood · 10/10 · 15 August 2009]

Cold Souls By Edward Havens

The easiest, and laziest, way to describe the new movie "Cold Souls" is to compare it to "Being John Malkovich." Yes, both feature a well-respected film actor playing a character named and slightly modeled after them, and find "themselves" in fantastical situations. The only other way they could be logically compared: They're both delightful and dexterously hilarious.

"Cold Souls" has a simple enough concept. Paul Giamatti (brilliantly played by Paul Giamatti) is an actor in New York City currently in rehearsals for a Broadway production of Anton Chekov's "Uncle Vayna." But with all the pressures of being famous and trying to decide which film project to choose next, Paul is having some trouble connecting to the role, and he believes he might have found his answer when he reads an article in the New Yorker magazine about an experimental process that claims to be able to remove someone's soul. Paul visits the clinic out on Roosevelt Island (an apparently soulless plot of land between Manhattan and Brooklyn, for those unfamiliar with the city's landscape, that was also used as the location of Jennifer Connelly's haunted apartment in the movie "Dark Water" a few years back) and after being assured of the validity of the clinic's claims by its founder and operator Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn), signs up.

At first, Paul does experience a very mild sense of relief to be divested of most of his soul. (It is explained that, after the extraction process, a small amount of residual soul remains.) His sex life with his wife (Emily Watson), and his coworkers on the stage do notice a slight but immediate different with their star, but Paul is still less than satisfied. Luckily for him, the clinic does also offer the ability to borrow some souls on hold, and even luckier, there happens to be what he is told is the soul of a Russian poet at the facility.

But, alas, it goes both ways. A side plot features Nina (Dina Korzun), a Russian woman whose job is to smuggle souls between New York and St. Petersberg. Her boss's young trophy wife wants to be an actress, and he commands Nina to get the soul of one of the actors on his wife's list, which includes several A-list, Oscar-winning actors. When Nina gets to the clinic in New York, however, she discovers there is only one actor with a soul in storage. Paul Giamatti, who is not on the list. No matter. She loads Paul's soul into herself and takes it back to Russia, telling her boss and his wife it's the soul of one of the actors on her list.

Paul, in the meantime, is starting to have some strange reactions to his new soul. He starts having bizarre visions of places he's never been to and people he's never met. It isn't until he visits Dr. Flintstein to get this soul removed and get his put back in that the theft of his soul is discovered, spinning the narrative into an unexpected but still poignant direction, as he uncovers what is happening in Russia and teaming with Nina to get his soul back.

When a film stars the likes of Paul Giamatti, Emily Watson and David Straithairn, there is little chance it would somehow be a lesser effort, even with a first-time feature director. Sophie Barthes, however, has a lot more heart and... well, soul, than the average tyro filmmaker. Barthes, who also wrote the film, says she was inspired after dreaming of Woody Allen discovering he has the soul of a chickpea. It's a cute idea, and one that could have been an utter failure in the hands of a less mature artist. Thankfully, Barthes doesn't appear to be interested in paying homages or outright ripping off anything another film or filmmaker she enjoyed in the past. Barthes seems content to just entertain by making you laugh, and in this regard, she exceeds remarkably well.

Much of that success comes from having a fearless performer like Paul Giamatti willingly allowing himself to be human. The movie's Paul Giamatti is not that likable a guy on a number of occasions (not unlike Harvey Pekar from "American Splendor" or Miles Raymond from "Sideways"), and it is the rare performer who will take that chance with an audience when the vast majority of the film is riding on his shoulders. Giamatti and Barthes effortlessly guide the movie from pathos to mirth and from eccentric character comedy piece to an international hunt for the essence of what makes us human. It's also wonderful to see David Straithairn do comedy again, a genre he rarely visits and one he should return to time and time again.

Best of all, "Cold Souls" is that rare type of movie that will make you laugh at many different levels, and will make you laugh as you think about it after the movie has ended. There are several wonderfully subtle jabs about celebrity and humanity buried deep in the text, ones that (at least by this writer) will be left to the viewer to discover and reflect upon themselves.

My rating: A-

Impressive Giamatti Performance in Futuristic Dark Comedy

[mannyrsox24 · 27 May 2009]

This dreamlike dark comedy starring Paul Giamatti is strangely hilarious at times and at other times it is moving. Paul Giamatti who plays himself in the film, is an actor in misery that is struggling with acting a soulful character in a Chekov play. He reads an article in The New Yorker about a company that can extract souls and preserve them, so one can live without a soul. Giamatti being curious decides to check it out. David Strathairn plays the soul doctor and is hilarious. Giamatti's first visit is full of humorous dry jokes as he is convinced to have his soul extracted. After feeling hollow and empty without a soul, Giamatti decides to borrow the soul of a Russian poet. Unsatisfied, all he wants is his own soul back, however it has been borrowed by the soap opera actress wife of a Russian mafioso. The way the film is portrayed is very surreal and the director did an excellent job capturing this feel. Giamatti steals the screen as he is humorous and yet can believably portray such complex emotion.

Deeply artistic....

[dude5568 · 7/10 · 8 July 2010]

Cold souls was a pleasant experience for me,well the story is a bit unusual but very thoughtful indeed.Paul Giamatti (as Paul Giamatti) plays the role of a famous actor who has been struggling with a play called 'UNCLE VANYA' and tries to find an answer which leads him to give up his soul,is this the final answer he was looking for??..or things become much complicated than before??,as i said the story is quite different and thoughtful.The movie is quite artistic in many ways,may be a little sad at times but always interesting enough to keep you involved.Paul Giamatti with an outstanding performance is very impressive...good film with a great story,better than most

A bleak film

[billpeter · 7/10 · 4 March 2010]

Yes, it is a comedy, but not just a black one, but a very bleak one. Bleak, like a bleak landscape, with very few features. The funny parts are few and far between. Bleak, also as in very dark. The situation that Paul Giamatti finds himself is is more dramatic than comedic, although there are some funny scenes. Funny in the way "Being John Malkovitch" was funny, but without that actor's egotism. In fact, Paul Giamatti's persona and performance are the opposite of egotistical. This really is Paul Giamatti's film, with the other actors, including the excellent David Strathairn and Emma Watson, merely foils. There is also an actress who is the "spitting image" of Scarlett Johansen. I thought that it was Scarlet playing an uncredited role - like Bette Midler in Get Shorty.

A fun ride

[Mamabadger56 · 7/10 · 19 December 2014]

Cold Souls starts with a very odd, even silly premise and takes it as far as it will go, treating the outlandish story with perfect seriousness. As a result, the movie is more than just a goofy sci-fi comedy - although it has its funny moments. There are elements of humour, of tragedy, of suspense, and even some gangster action.

The basic story: Paul Giamatti, playing a version of himself, is an actor who is struggling with negative emotions while preparing for a role in Uncle Vanya. In an effort to resolve these issues, he submits to a newly developed procedure which removes a person's soul, placing it in storage until wanted. He is relieved of strong feelings, but runs into unexpected problems trying to conduct his life as a soulless person. The situation is further complicated by a thriving black market for donor souls.

Paul Giamatti's performance is definitely one of the best things about the film. I particularly enjoyed Giamatti rehearsing scenes from Uncle Vanya, first as his ordinary self; then as himself minus a soul; and finally, as himself with a donor soul from a female Russian poet.

This is an entertaining movie overall. The plot is full of continual unexpected twists, some funny, some rather dark, and never becomes dull or predictable.

Refreshing sci-fi

[erica-tam061 · 10/10 · 17 August 2009]

Cold Souls is an off-beat intelligent, imaginative story that combines elements of sci-fi, drama and mystery. It's hard to describe - Surreal comedy? It doesn't really fit in any specific category. It's funny and sad at the same time.

Paul Giamatti delivers an incredible performance, mastering a broad range of emotions and making his character delightfully amusing and sometimes heartbreaking. The tone reminded me of Kafka, Julio Cortazar and at times Woody Allen and Kaufman. I found myself thinking about it for a long time after I saw it.

"Moon" and "Cold Souls" are refreshing the sci-fi genre this summer. There was something in both films I haven't came across in many other movies recently, a soul maybe... something different for sure.

"Better Git It In Your Soul!"

[druid333-2 · 9/10 · 25 August 2009]

...To quote the late,great, Charles Mingus. Now,onto the movie. Paul Giamatti plays...well...um, Paul Giamatti,an actor who seems to be having the worst time trying to psyche himself into mustering up a good performance in a revival of 'Uncle Vanya'. After figuring that he just doesn't have the soul power that is conducive for taking on such a plum role,he settles into a depressed funk. He reads an article about soul transplants,and decides to take a whirl at it. Paul chooses the soul of a Russian poet,and has the procedure done. Problem is, the procedure has some serious repercussions. When Paul tries to get his soul back,he finds that it has been borrowed by a Russian actress,who acts in a daily soap opera. This is a dead on,tongue in cheek,deadpan comedy/drama for the thinking person. Besides Paul Giamatti,the film's cast is rounded out by Emily Watson as his wife,Nina,David Straitharn as Doctor Flintstein,the soul specialist,and a largely unknown cast of Russian actors who turn in a fine job. Lauren Ambrose ('Six Feet Under','Swimming') has some brief, but solid time on screen as Stephanie,Dr. Flintstein's assistant & secretary. This is the Charlie Kaufman screenplay that Charlie Kaufman didn't write (so expect an occasional sojourn into surrealism). Spoken mainly in English,but with some Russian with English subtitles. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA for some brief flashes of nudity & some naughty language.

Don't mention Charlie Kaufman... (whoops)

[bowmanblue · 7/10 · 27 May 2014]

Talking about Cold Souls is almost impossible without mentioning Charlie Kaufman (who wrote Being John Malkovich and other similar 'far out' screenplays). Unfortunately, Cold Souls' writer/director Sophie Barthes seems to want to distance her work from that of Kaufman's.

If you've seen Being John Malkovich you'll know the script is a back 'out there' (and if you haven't seen it, you definitely should!) - it explores weird existential themes like multiple people living in one body etc. And, whether Sophie Barthes likes it or not, or even meant it or not, Cold Souls if definitely in the same category.

Paul Giamatti plays (a slightly exaggerated various of) himself - an actor of reasonable credibility, who's having trouble getting into character for one of his plays. He hears about a company who can remove (and store) your soul, freeing you up for apparently anything.

If you can believe in the concept of removing, storing (and even selling!) your soul, then you should at least be intrigued by this film. It's part drama, part comedy and part make-you-question-the-nature-of-being, but never stays with just one of the genres for any length of time.

Naturally things don't go right for poor Paul and his soul gets stolen and he has to track it down. What follows won't have you falling off your seat laughing, nor in floods of tears, but, if you're after something that's just a little bit quirky then this one might be for you.

Bottom line: if you liked Being John Malkovich then this one may also amuse.

http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

Smart, funny, and unique

[KnightsofNi11 · 7/10 · 30 September 2011]

Sometime when life is feeling a bit mundane and a bit slow, all we need is a good old existential comedy to liven things up a bit. Am I right? Well, right or not, if you're looking for your fix of existential laughs then Cold Souls is the place to look. Paul Giamatti stars as himself, a down on his luck actor who is terribly stressed about an upcoming stage performance. To try and get some answers to his life he lets a mysterious company extract his soul and store it for him. It's a melancholy dramady with a creative sci-fi twist. It's a very bizarre film but of a high quality full of clever witticism. The closest thing I can relate it to is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film where the sci-fi element of memory erasing is implanted in a sincere real world drama. And while Cold Souls doesn't have the groundbreaking beauty of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it is a very enjoyable film.

Cold Souls has that very dry sense of humor that I've always loved. It pretends to take itself seriously, essentially mocking itself at points, which is a riot to watch. Paul Giamatti does an excellent job playing himself, as ironic and strange as that is. He brings out all the subtle humor of the film which, when picked up on, is laugh out loud hilarious. At the same time Giamatti is also able to play the serious side of the film very nicely. The wacky situations he gets himself into throughout the film are plenty of fun, but Cold Souls doesn't forget about its more sincere side. It is, in a way, a mid-life crisis film in the way that it portrays its main character reflecting heavily on himself and his life. Thus Cold Souls fits perfectly into the subgenre of existential comedy. We'll just have to assume that that is a subgenre. Okay? For the most part Cold Souls is a film that holds together nicely but it does grow a bit absurd towards the middle. The plot sort of gets out of control at the halfway mark and it also slows down considerably, making less and less plausible sense as more characters are introduced. It maintains its melancholy atmosphere nicely but the plot itself gets thin and silly. Thankfully it brings it back together by the end, wrapping up the film with an open yet also cathartic ending.

I really have to give it props for being able to bring itself back to one piece after it began to fall apart in the final act. My rhetoric is probably too critical as Cold Souls really is a good film from start to finish. It isn't perfect and I look back on it as a very unique, very nutty film rather than an existential dramatic art piece. Definitely see Cold Souls as it is strange and its plenty creative. It's the kind of film that doesn't come around too often, and it provides a nice break from the mundane and repetitive nature of your average cinematic fare.

Rib-tickling brain-food

[moviebookchats · 7/10 · 28 June 2009]

Cold Souls - Sydney Film Festival, June 2009

The first drawcard of this film for me was character actor Paul Giamatti playing himself. His neurotic self-caricature testifies to the ego-free professionalism of a true thespian. Let's call his scripted self 'Screen-Giamatti' OR (S-G for short) to avoid confusion.

The other draw was the high-concept premise: commercialized soul-transfers as a shortcut over emotional hurdles. I was hoping for a return to the territory of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: light-fingered deployment of a fantastical idea for ambitious dramatic and intellectual game-playing. I was not disappointed. The film's running gag exploiting the absurdity of capital-S Souls being reduced to concrete commodities is comparable to Charlie Kauffman's deadpan weirdness for rib-tickling value. There are however some telling divergences in approach.

Where Sunshine's Michel Gondry deployed inventive visual metaphors to show inner-self goings-on, writer-director Sophie Barthes's film remains agnostic about the profundities involved, portraying the soul-transfers' effects rather. For example Screen-Giamatti's scientifically-induced 'soullessness' surfaces in his vulgarized choices in tasteless clothes and insensitive conversation.

Have you heard of the misdirecting convention of storytelling named the McGuffin by Hitchcock? It means a supposedly fabled mystery or treasure is used drives the characters into action,but it is often swept under the carpet once whatever drama the screenwriter really wants to present has upstaged it. The perennially disappointing McGuffin actually gets a pay-off of sorts in Cold Souls.

In Pulp Fiction the bloodily-defended briefcase was coyly hinted by the glowing aura of its unseen contents to hold a disembodied soul. In Cold Souls the quest is quite prosaically driven by Screen-Giamatti's quest to retrieve his sold-on soul from a Russian starlet (who thinks she acquired Al Pacino's). This plot offered abundant possibilities for speculating on what a soul would carry with it to its new home, but these sort of questions were left disappointingly unexplored.

What did get taken to its conclusion was S-G's conflicted avoidance of the ample opportunities provided to him to gaze into his own internal landscape, fearing what horrors or banalities he may find. His final shaky surrender to his own fathomless inner life was quite poignant, an unsentimental and ineffable portrayal of self-acceptance.

This film's indirect presentation of the en-souled and the soul-less, kept me wondering what the creators were trying to say about such differences. These are foregrounded whenever Screen-Giamatti's stage rehearsals of Chekhov are on display.

Why does the self-pitying passivity of Uncle Vanya make for soulful art, while a bit of gratifying slap-and-tickle does not? What is really being lost, from individuals and their culture, under Russian gangster-capitalist's soul-stealing exploitation of their workforce? Is Giamatti's turn as a de-souled fashion-disaster a take on the Ugly American stereotype? Are a sense of humour and a reflective self-awareness really mutually exclusive? I look forward to a wider release of this film and the chance to discuss such questions with other interested posters.

I'm giving it the cold shoulder ...

[colin_coyne · 6/10 · 6 November 2009]

Cold Souls was one of those "surreal" films that you get or you don't.

Written and Directed by Sophie Barthes … it tells the tale of actor (Paul Giamatti - playing himself), that is down and stressed out whilst taking on the lead role of Anton Chekov's play "Uncle Vanya".

Unable to cope, Paul turns for help to a company that claims to be able to extract and store your soul … thereby relieving you of any past tensions and worries … All goes well at first … until Paul notices some unwanted side-effects … then ensues the several plot twists and turns that arise when Paul finds himself embroiled deep within an underworld where human souls are traded on the black market leading to confrontations with Russian Gangsters when tries to get his own soul back ...

Paul Giamatti ("Sideways") is (as always) a very believable, moving character … although, it is in a role that is played in a very low-key, dark manner … which, it must be said, sometimes helps when he cracks some wicked one-liners to alleviate the tension of the situation, and David Strathairn who plays the enigmatic Dr. Flintstein (surely a pun on Dr. Frankenstein) also plays quite a convincing role … however, … it must be said, that the rest of the cast is very wooden indeed … and the character of Nina (Dina Korzun) probably had exactly the same expression on her face for the entire movie – pretty emotionless throughout.

The Writing and Direction (Sophie Barthes) really wasn't up to much and the ending was very poor indeed and this combined to make Cold Souls eventually an unfulfiling experience Ultimately, a lot of the potential promise of this film fell short of the mark, and I just couldn't keep from comparing Cold Souls to the far superior Oscar winning "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" – which was using the same premise of "Soul Swapping" – but was (to me) a masterpiece compared to this film.

Soulfood for thought

[Philby-3 · 8/10 · 6 December 2009]

As so far no-one has actually located the site of the soul in the human body (although the French philosopher Descartes thought it might be the pineal gland), this story is technically science fiction, but with satiric intent - "metaphysical comedy" is nearer the mark. Remember in Charlie Kaufman's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where Lacuna Corp offered to remove memories you'd rather forget, such as a failed relationship? Well, here Dr Flintstein (David Strathairn, hilarious) of Soul Storage ("conveniently located at Roosevelt Island") offers to store your soul temporarily while you get over your current existential crisis.

Paul Giamatti, playing a version of himself like John Malkovic in "Being", is having trouble with his stage portrayal of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" and signs up after reading an article about soul storage in the "New Yorker" at the behest of his agent. He soon discovers that his soul might be the size of a chick pea but is necessary all the same. He is the victim of a soul-smuggling racket, and, temporarily equipped with the soul of a Russian poet, he hastens to St Petersburg, Russia, with Nina (Dina Korzun), one of the operatives (a "soul mule"), to get back his soul, which has been placed into the person of Sveta (a gorgeous Katheryn Winnick), a beautiful but vacuous soap opera star, the wife of the chief racketeer (Sergey Kolesnikov), who is under the impression it belongs to Al Pacino.

This synopsis suggests a certain amount of inspiration from Kaufman, Spike Jonze and Woody Allen, who has spent a large part of his career trying to find his and other peoples' souls, but Sophie Barthes, who debuts as a director of features here manages to put her own spin on the story, which is also very beautifully shot by Andrij Parekh. The dream sequences in particular are very carefully made and give an extra dimension to the film. Giamatti ("John Adams", "Sideways") is a fine character actor and has no trouble producing the angst required and Dina Korzun is just right as the mule who helps him out. Emily Watson is also sympathetic as Paul's baffled wife. And who should pop up as the exasperated director of the "Uncle Vanya" production but Michael Tucker – "Stewart" of LA Law. The Russians are real and so is the St Petersburg seen in the film.

I enjoyed the film. Consumerism, especially as practiced by the urban middle classes in the US is an easy target, but Sophie Barthes is light on her feet and at the same time gives the satire some depth. Russian and American souls are pretty similar, it seems, it's just that Americans, having more money, have more distractions.

Sleeper hit

[deastman_uk · 6/10 · 20 October 2009]

New York? Existential angst? Now, I want to be careful here. Paul Giamatti may not want to be the next Woody Allen, but after this film he will be considered just that.

Forget comparisons with Eternal Sunshine, this film compares directly with any number of Woody Allen "funny" films, though Sleeper must come to mind. Which to me, is a very good thing.

This film may have needed slightly tighter editing, but the traits of a good Allen film are there. Brilliant support acting. A rather strange conceit that the film milks. Strained relationships. And of course existential angst. And jokes.

This is not chock full of jokes and sight gags, and is attempting a little too much artsy ness because of the soul stuff. And yet there is still room for the brilliant humour of two guys looking for a soul that has fallen on the floor. "Don't touch it!"

Good SF Premise Trumped by Artsy Pretentiousness

[RichardSRussell-1 · 4/10 · 29 October 2009]

Cold Souls (PG-13, 1:46) — SF, 3rd string, original

In 1907, Dr. Douglas MacDougall of Haverhill, MA, constructed in his office a suspended platform designed to display the weight of a bed and the moribund person upon it, with a view toward detecting the change in weight at the moment of death, presumably ascribable to the departed soul. After half a dozen experiments, he concluded that the soul weighed about 21 grams. Experiments with dying frogs produced no measurable weight loss, which Dr. MacDougall expected, since he didn't think they HAD souls. He largely ignored the fact that a frog weighs about 1% of a human, and thus a comparable mass loss would have been undetectable by his crude apparatus.

Subsequent attempts to replicate his experiments produced no statistically significant measurements, so it seems fair to conclude that the good doctor observed what he hoped to observe.

But suppose we could take his hypothesis seriously. What if the soul were not something ephemeral and ghostly but an actual bodily organ?

That's the premise behind Cold Souls, most definitely an art film, in which the characters spend a lot of time standing, sitting, or lying around talking about their feelings. The protagonist, an actor named Paul Giamatti (played by the actor Paul Giamatti), is rehearsing for the title role in Anton Chekov's Uncle Vanya, and it's not going well. He is beset by ennui and weltschmerz to the point where he keeps blowing his lines or supplying inappropriate emotional overtones.

A trip to the Soul Storage Company provides him with a solution. As the proprietor, Dr. D. Flintstein (David Strathairn) observes, "When you get rid of the soul, everything makes so much more sense."

So Giamatti does just that. But a week or so later, while the cloud of gloom over his head has been lifted, he's having trouble relating to his wife. And he finds himself looking on in puzzlement at some friends discussing the failing health of one of their parents. "Why don't you just unplug her?", he asks, oblivious to the shocked reaction he's getting from the people who have clearly been doing everything in their power to keep the old gal's engine ticking over. So "no soul" isn't the panacea he'd hoped for.

He experiments for a bit with a replacement, the soul of a Russian poet, but that doesn't work out all that well, either, so he asks for his own soul back. Here a snag occurs, as Nina (Dina Korzun), the Russian "mule" who's been couriering the gray-market souls out of Russia, has "borrowed" Giamatti's to lend to her boss, whose wife Sveta, a talentless Russian soap-opera star, wants the soul of a great American actor; she thinks she's got Al Pacino.

I'll stop there with the plot summary and skip to the analysis. Giamatti plays an incredibly self-absorbed, bumbly guy, regardless of whether he's got his soul (which, BTW, looks like a filbert or a garbanzo bean) or not. We have only his word for it that there's any difference. This violates one of the basic tenets of effective film-making: show, don't tell. A cynic or skeptic could easily imagine that whatever he experiences is due to nothing more than the placebo effect, augmented by the extremely snazzy medical props, which look a lot like MRI machines.

As mentioned above, lots of time is spent standing, sitting, or lying around, plus staring off into space, into a mirror, etc. I estimate that about 30 minutes of the film's 101 are frittered away like this. Paul's wife, Claire, is played by the redoubtable Emily Watson, whose skills are utterly wasted in a throw-away role.

So, bottom line, interesting SF premise that might have made an interesting SF film, but wasted in an effluvium of artiness.

I loved it, well-balanced, classic Giamatti drama and humour

[yak-yak · 9/10 · 3 June 2010]

I gave the movie 9 and I stand behind that. The classic Giamatti drama, wit and humour are not lacking here and there are foreign-speaking parts which are blissfully uncluttered. The viewer has to be forgiving of practical details relating to the non-local scenes because getting bogged down in the reality of what would likely have really happened would make the movie darker than desired and be inconsistent with the unreal aspect of the plot. In essence, a little flexibility on the practical nature of things is rewarded with a rich experience. The only real downside is the undeveloped character played by Emily Watson. Even a few more good lines could have given us a full character. If her character was supposed to be an equal presence then the movie would get a lower grade, but as a supporting role it was good.

An existentialist comedy that takes itself too seriously

[Imdbidia · 7/10 · 9 February 2011]

Cold Souls is a comedy of the absurd with some surrealist and existentialist touches, and a philosophical query on the nature of the soul. The film departs from a quote from Descartes that says that the soul is located in a little place in the brain, a premise that leaves out one of the most interesting aspects of the nature of the soul. The script is more interested in asking and answering the following questions: What exactly is the soul? What does the soul to our self and how it defines who we are? What would it be not having a soul and being just a corporeal being? What would it be living with the soul of another person? Why would anybody want to empty out his/her body from his/her soul? Paul Giametti plays himself, better said, a version of himself - an actor in crisis, burdened by the weight of role he's playing on his mood and spirit -even though this is just created by his job-, who goes to a clinic where the soul can be extracted and stored, restored and exchanged, whatever you like. What happens Giametti in his quest to be soul-lighted without his soul is the core of the story.

Giametti shows once again what a great actor he is. Russian actress Dina Kurzun, who plays a "mule" of souls between Russia and the US is OK in her role. The other actors are all mediocre, that's the truth.

The tone of the film is somewhat depressing and gray, which goes well with Giametti's character. In fact, all the characters in the movie are very serious and gray, as if all souls in the world had that same defect. I think that's the best part of the movie, the depiction of a world of gray souls, always unsatisfied about being human, always wanting to be perfect. Humans avoiding everything that makes us humans. The unwillingness of humans to see within, to deal with our emotions, feelings and problems, our past and present. The soul as a product of trade, like our society, in which everything is for sale, and bogus people are everywhere. These elements are openly and clearly presented, in a successful way through Giametti's dialogs and part of the storyline.

On the other hand, I see a contradiction, a deep one, between what the director wants to portray and what actually the characters in the script portray. If the soul is undeniable linked to our emotions and feelings, and their weight makes us what we are, how is possible that a person without soul, empty, can be aware and suffer from not having a soul? If your soul is not yours but that of another person, how do you know (from an emotional point of view) that the soul is not yours? If the soul is located in a part of the brain, how can the brain work normally after the soul has been extracted? The movie does not success at offering response to these questions, and in fact mixes things up a little bit.

Despite the serious tone of the film, the main concepts that the movie deals with are examined superficially. Perhaps, a lighter story an characters and a deeper analysis of the philosophical elements of the script would have produced a more engaging film. I am thinking, for example, in The Truman Show, which did just that without losing any depth, and being an entertaining movie at the same time.

There is a problem with the music too, at least to me. A couple of songs in French appear from nowhere halfway the movie. They are beautiful and very much of my liking, but they do not fit with the rest of the music and the general music ambiance of the film. In fact they were a shock and a distraction from the scene that they were paired with.

The film has an excellent starting point and some very original ideas, but the tone of the film is too serious on one hand, and too descriptive in the other. It's not a drama or a comedy either, an ambiguous mix instead.

I think that, still, is one of those films you have to see because it is daring, different and original.

By the way, I love the movie poster. It's great and pretty much sums up the main concept of the film in just one shot.

Hummus

[tedg · 1 March 2011]

This is depressing, because it is not merely bad, it stomps on some very precious ideas.

The fault is in trying to be Woody Allen; even he fails most of the time. There is a deep concept here, but it is obscured by the attempt to wrap it in humor.

The thing worth noticing:

This is a film about performance. Actors have a cursed life in that they have to fill themselves by emptying themselves. The full life is the life committed to potential waste. We are all actors. These concepts first appeared in drama in the famous Vanya of Chekhov. "Vanya on 42nd Street" changed that into a layered folding, making the connection to life outside of the theater explicit.

Here, Giamatti plays the role of Wallace Shawnin "Vanya on 42nd."

David Strathairn plays the same role he did in the similar "Limbo," while Dina Korzun adapts the Audrey Tautou role from "Dirty Pretty Things."

Even the secondary characters are pulled from cold storage with Lauren Ambrose asked to stand in for the Alicia Witt role in "Liebestraum." All of those referenced films repackage Vanya's notions which are deep and disturbing, as suicidally disturbing as they were for the uncle.

There is a way to handle this with humor, I am sure, but Barthes does not find it. She empties and does not fill.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Full of souls and holes

[Skadian · 6/10 · 14 August 2010]

After seeing how "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" use their sci-fi premises to enhance and extract romantic or existential story-lines, I found "Cold Souls" to be lacking in dramatic consequence and over-flowing in technicalities surrounding it's particular sci-fi premise.

In this film the actor Paul Giamatti plays the actor Paul Giamatti, who decides to have his soul stored away for two weeks, while he works on a difficult theater role. When his soul is stolen from the soul storage company, he ventures out to find it, thereby meeting a Russian woman, Nina (Dina Korzun), who works as a soul transporter.

This plot results in bizarrely funny scenes, for example when Paul accidentally drops his soul on the floor, and the manager crawls around nervously to search the carpet for it as if he were looking for, while afraid to step on, a contact lense.

The film also contains many suggestions as to the consequences of separating yourself from your soul. However, the film is inconsistent in these suggestions - do you have feelings or not, when you are without a soul? Do you have a conscience or not?

After having spent many scenes throughout the first half movie on Paul's rehearsals in the theater, director Sophie Barthes leaves this theme altogether for the second half.

Whereas the two above-mentioned movies keep the technicalities of their premise in the background, this movie spends many lines explaining how souls leave residue etc., without adding to the story.

I was entertained by this movie and it inspired a somewhat soul-searching conversation with my co-viewer. I found Giamatti's performance pleasant and was quite fascinated by Dina Korzun's quiet, almost cool humbleness as Nina. But when it came to the story's personal and existential development, I was left with too many blanks.