Review of Cold Souls (2009) by Shane G — 13 Mar 2010

â??Cold Soulsâ?? is a truly fun ride. It's darkly hilarious â?? I hit the floor a few times. It's intelligent, thought provoking and plain old beautiful. To boot, I believe this is the best performance of Paul Giamatti's career.

Paul Giamatti plays Paul Giamatti, an actor. Literally from the opening lines of the film, Paul is experiencing massive stress. The stress is ruining his life and acting career. A friend of Paul's turns him onto a news article which claims the road to happiness begins with removing the soul from the body. And wouldn't you know it, there just happens to be a company that can disembody the soul.

Paul has a consultation with the company and decides soul disembodiment is his only chance at salvation. After the procedure Paul looses all signs of life and humanity. Essentially, he's a low functioning, walking pile of flesh. It's during this time the film is at its best.

Soon, Paul discovers not having a soul is affecting his life and career more than having a soul ever did. Instead of getting his own soul back, he swaps and takes another soul for a test drive. The soul is of a Russian poet. This soul does more positive things for Paul than he thought possible. However, Paul is still just a bit off in his life.

When Paul goes back to the company to retrieve his original soul, he finds it missing. Paul's soul has been abducted and put into circulation in the Russian underworld of soul-trafficking. Paul is forced to great lengths at this point to get his soul back.

So, the story was great. As I said it was hilarious, dark and very thought provoking. It made me think quite a bit about what the soul's job inside the body is. It made me contemplate losing my own soul and what the ramifications of such a thing would be. While funny, the film is also incredibly touching and at several points very sad.

Paul Giamatti is unbelievably fantastic in this film. I've seen him in some arguably stupid roles but he's never performed poorly. This role is the perfect match of actor to character. Giamatti has an uncanny ability to make me believe him. In this role he does just that. Everything he does with this character, though scripted, makes so much sense: I believe completely the actions this guy takes in order to improve his desperate situation.

What I believe makes this performance so impressive is the very distinct changes in Paul's (the character) personality throughout the film. He is one way with his soul. He's a hollow version of himself without his soul. He has yet another completely different personality with the soul he test drives. Giamatti (the actor) plays what are essentially three very different characters perfectly. Again, I believe this is the perfect match of a character and actor.

Definitely worth a viewing for those who enjoy thinking about what they watch. DVD purchase for certain.