(2008)
3.5
Derek Armstrong
Cold Souls moves through the same absurdist universe as Being John Malkovich, and at times is almost as satisfying as that seminal Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman collaboration. Instead of being the person in question, the goal for Paul Giamatti, playing himself, is to not be himself, operating under the theory that he'll be a better Uncle Vanya on Broadway if he can extract his emotionally burdensome soul -- which, in physical terms, looks something like a garbanzo bean. This is quite the delicious, whimsical setup, but Cold Souls ends up being very dry in its humor, likely preventing it from reaching the same kind of audience that Malkovich reached. The title says it all -- this film is cold indeed, not only from a physical standpoint, set partly in wintry Russia, but from an emotional standpoint, as it's suffused by a metaphysical bleakness befitting a Russian playwright (Uncle Vanya was written by Anton Chekhov). This coldness doesn't preclude it from having its laugh-out-loud moments. Writer-director Sophie Barthes has fashioned a wildly original story here, one that earns comparisons to Malkovich primarily because both films display an incomparable blend of nonfiction, fiction, and out-and-out existential fantasy. In Giamatti, she's found the perfect collaborator to translate the script's neuroses and gallows humor, not to mention act out the behavioral differences between a soulful and a soulless version of the protagonist, with all the hilarious physicality that this implies. The script asks interesting questions about the world of soul extraction and implantation, mining humor from the way different souls look, how to transport them without accidentally absorbing and/or destroying them, etc. It's an especially confident debut from its writer-director, who previously directed a short in which a woman purchases a box of happiness. One only wonders what other metaphysical treats Barthes has in store for us.
Cold Souls on AllMovie
Cold Souls (2008)
