It would be difficult not to mention Charlie Kaufman, or his idiosyncratic metaphysical exploration of identity, “Being John Malkovich”, when discussing “Cold Souls”, given its deliberate quirk, existential anxieties and template of an actor playing himself. The thing is, “Cold Souls” is no “Being John Malkovich”; it’s not even the Michel Gondry helmed ‘Human Nature”. Instead, it is a fairly prosaic glance at thorny questions treated glibly and without insight, while an exuberant actor goes undirected.
Paul Giamatti stars as an actor struggling with existential weight
Playing himself, Paul Giamatti struggles emotionally with the character of Uncle Vanya, while rehearsing for the famed Chekhov play. Seemingly unaware of the emotional framework and psychology behind the performing arts, Giamatti heads off to an innovative enterprise run by Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn), where souls are extracted from the body.
Unsurprisingly, Paul learns that without a soul, performing a character of any sort is nearly impossible, and his wife (Emily Watson, playing sane for once) noticed peculiarities in not only his behaviour, but also his smell and touch. The problem here is that his soul has wound up in the middle of a Russian soul-smuggling operation, which makes re-instating it a little difficult.
Comedy, drama and metaphysical angst fail to convince.
Since very little insight is applied to tabled philosophical and religious notions, one would assume that the film was intended as a comedy of peculiarities. The problem with this; however, is that the film is not even remotely amusing, and to be frank, it drags on with poor pacing, eventually attempting latter melancholy unsuccessfully.
It is all highly disappointing, as one might expect a cinematic meeting between Paul Giamatti and the woman hosting his soul would lead to something remotely clever, but it doesn’t. Instead, they just stand around exasperated saying things like “we’re talking about souls” and “but that’s my soul!”, while Giamatti screeches, preens and overacts.
While hollow in the inside, it's pretty on the outside
On the upside, the cold, vintage look of the film suits its intentions and sensibilities, demonstrating aesthetic affinities, even if intellectual ones are not existent. Even the directorial style is borrowed directly from Mr. Spike Jonze, with sudden edits, hand-held footage and stationary shots of anything deemed peculiar. If only mirroring something on the outside were as easy as duplicating it on the inside. Granted, this might be the irony of the entire film, as it borrows the souls of other, more successful, movies, but has no idea what to do with them.
Cold Souls also features Lauren Ambrose, Katheryn Winnick and Dina Korzun and opens on August 7, 2009 in Toronto.
