Review of Cold Souls (2009) by Shane M — 27 Mar 2010

Giamatti attempts to make fun of himself in this one-note fantasy-satire misfire.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***.

'Cold Souls' is another film that defies easy classification. I think it's best to think of it as more of a combination of fantasy and satire than science fiction, since it doesn't take itself at all very seriously. It seems to be set in present day New York, but it could be a few years in the future. Paul Giamatti plays a depressed version of himself who feels he's lost his creative abilities as an actor. While rehearsing the part of Uncle Vanya in the famed Chekov play, he finds he simply cannot bring the character to life.

While flipping through The New Yorker magazine, he sees an ad for an outfit that specializes in 'Soul Storage' located (in of all places), Roosevelt Island! He makes an appointment and goes to the see the director of the company, Dr. Flintstein (David Strathaim). Flintstein explains that what his company does is extract souls from peoples' bodies and stores them for a fee. The actual extraction does not affect the consciousness of the person and they retain all their memories. Flinstein further explains to Giamatti that 5% of the soul usually survives the extraction procedure but without the other 95%, supposedly the personality will become 'lighter' and less unencumbered since most of the soul is no longer there to weigh the person down.

Giamatti agrees to the procedure and enters a contraption that looks like a modern day 'iron lung'. The actual soul resembles a chickpea and is stored in a container which is then placed in locked drawers inside a room that resembles a bank vault. The company also specializes in renting out other peoples' souls which are smuggled in by black market mules from Russia. When Giamatti's soul is first extracted, he feels the initial procedure doesn't help him with his acting skills so he rents the soul of an anonymous Russian poet which he hopes will make him more proficient in playing Uncle Vanya.

While Giamatti's wife perceives him to be a different person, there is no outwardly discernible change in his personality. Even though Giamatti's body is inhabited by the soul of a poet, we the audience cannot perceive the change. Thus the potential for any kind of interesting plot twists or satire is lost.

The plot takes a turn when the head of the black market soul extraction operation in Russia orders one of the mules, Nina (Nina Korzun), to steal the soul of a famous American actor for his wife, who wants to improve her acting skills in soap operas. The joke is that the only 'famous actor' they have on file is Giamatti, so Nina steals his soul and it's placed in the actress's body. Giamatti discovers that his soul is missing from the vault and eventually learns from Nina that it's the Russians who have pilfered it. The climax takes place mainly in Russia where Giamatti aided by Nina kidnap the actress and manage to retrieve the missing soul. Along the way, Giamatti discovers the identity of the Russian poet inside his body and it turns out she's committed suicide. The final scene has Giamatti meeting a woman at a beach?is it Nina or the dead poet? Whatever the case, the shot fades to a blur and the two figures seem to merge into one.

The problem with Giamatti's attempt to make fun of himself is that it goes on ad infinitum. We GET the idea from the very beginning that he's supposed to be mediocre and narcissistic and half way through the movie, the mugging becomes tiresome. The same goes for the Russians?again the point is played out over and over again that they're a bunch of seedy, amoral characters who are just out to make a buck. The only really enjoyable character is the personable Dr. Flintstein-- David Strathaim does a fine job in conveying the humor of a man who treats the extraction and storage of souls as if he were selling life insurance.

'Cold Souls' is often slow-paced, due to the repetitious scenes that feature the various characters undergoing the extraction process. Toward the film's climax, Giamatti puts on special goggle glasses and "peers into his soul"--there are a few tame flashbacks of his childhood, but nothing very memorable.

In the end, 'Cold Souls' has no real targets of value to satirize. The whole idea of 'soul extraction' is also too ludicrous for fantasy which requires some grounding in reality (an actual 'twister' carried Dorothy to the fantasy land of Oz; here, they're extracting souls that look like chickpeas). Some may still find 'Cold Souls' charming in an odd way but if you really look at it, this is a film based on a one-note, one-joke idea.