Review of Cold Souls (2009) by Erick G — 25 Feb 2010

This is a pretty clever attempt at breaking the fourth wall as it follows the same warped logic as "Being John Malkovich" by having a big-name actor play himself as he is placed in the middle of a truly off-the-wall situation; if you're going to tell the story of a sad sack actor who decides to have his soul removed and winds up losing it, there probably isn't a better casting choice than Paul Giamatti.

"Cold Souls" gets a lot of mileage out of its absurdist situations and much of the humour is derived from the fact that the story's most outrageous elements are played absolutely straight and are treated with completely seriousness by the actors.

Giamatti is able to bring a lot of genuine pathos to the material, though the narrative seems to rely on far too many scenes of him just moping around; as clever as the premise is, it's apparent that writer-director Sophie Barthes might have struggled with stretching it out to feature length, so the film runs out of steam at times and has its fair share of dead spots.

Barthes is obviously a very talented writer, but her directorial style is somewhat flat; however, there is still a lot of great stuff of display in "Cold Souls", so I definitely look forward to seeing what she deliver in the future.