Cold Souls [DVD]

I really don't get why the other reviewers are so down on this film, i thought it was truly amazing - the only other film even remotely like it is Being John Malkovich, & yes, this is derivative of that film & charlie kaufman in general but as those films are some of the finest ever made - & there are only about three or four of them -i am extremely grateful to find another one which deals with such eternal, tender, human questions with such imagination & beauty. I love this film & recommend it to everyone i know. And you, too.

Cold Souls takes a simple premise - what if it were possible to extract the human soul from the body, and to trade souls between bodies? - to create a film that aims at tragicomedy but falls some way short of comedy and tragedy alike.

Paul Giamatti plays an actor who is struggling with the burden of his soul while trying to act in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. His agent tips him off to a new technology that will allow him to remove and store his soul for the duration of the play's rehearsal and run. Unfortunately, the apparent simplicity of the process conceals murky social undercurrents.

Giamatti is fine, though people may be getting a little tired of him playing himself (his actor character is called 'Paul Giamatti'). The director does seem to assume that his every change of expression is amusing in itself. Emily Watson as his wife is seriously underused. Most of the rest of the cast are at least competent. This throws heavy emphasis on the script, which is by the director, Sophie Barthes, whose full-length début this appears to be. Unfortunately the script is lightweight without actually being funny. The metaphysical implications opened up by the possibility of soullessness and the voluntary abandonment of identity are hardly more than sketched, and as a result the tragic dimension of Giamatti's decision is only hinted at. Most of the comedy, such as it is, revolves around a series of rather obvious and tiresome in-jokes about acting and actors which most viewers will have seen before.

Although watchable - there is some effective acting in the scenes set in Russia - Cold Souls is over-ambitious and underachieving. It's a slow-paced and monotone film, and in the end neither clever nor moving enough to justify its length. Viewers who are interested in a better modern treatment of the essentially Faustian theme - trying to cheat one's way out of the human condition - would be advised to look at Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind [DVD] [2004] first.

I feel a little embarrassed being the first reviewer and it being negative, but I did feel compelled to write something, since this movie did not match expectations.

Firstly, unlike Being John Malkovich, the fact that Giamatti is playing himself has no bearing on the story, and the gimmick is wasted. He could be playing any struggling stage actor.

Secondly this ridiculous concept of soul trading is presented very seriously. I love surreal films, but when you present an absurd idea 100% seriously I find myself thinking those words 'this is stupid'.

Thirdly it is not all that interesting and I struggled to finish it. No quirky characters, no tension. To conclude, just because I didn't like it doesn't make it a bad film, but seeing as I enjoyed such films as Adaptation, Moon, Being John Malkovich, Synechdoche etc, I do think I'm target audience.