Cold Souls

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.