The premise of "Cold Souls" is not subtle: it's a movie about soul-searching in the most literal sense. The obvious comparison is to say that Sophie Barthes is, in her feature-length debut, echoing Charlie Kaufman - and like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", the script ins...( read more)
Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn, Dina Korzun
Paul Giamatti plays an actor named… Paul Giamatti. Stumbling upon an article in The New Yorker about a high-tech company that extracts, deep-freezes and stores people’s souls, Paul very well might hav...( read more
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Stats: 270 reviews
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Flixster Reviews (270)
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October 28, 2009
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September 7, 2009
Cold Souls is a very polarizing picture. It definitely will not be for everybody and that should go without saying about most movies. The film starts off with an interesting premise: human souls can be removed from the body and stored away or sold/exchanged for other, better soul...( read more)
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August 23, 2009
Dr. Flinstein: Believe me, when you get rid of the soul, everything makes so much more sense.
A very weird and deep comedy starring Paul Giamatti as himself. This film feels very much like a story from the mind of Charlie Kaufman, but its not. This is an original story with some...( read more) -
October 15, 2009
In this sci-fi film, a person can remove his soul from his body so that he doesn't have to worry about anything anymore. Paul Giamatti playing himself decides to try it out so he can bare working on the play Uncle Vanya.
Odds are if you're watching this you'll be comparing it to...( read more) -
September 24, 2009
Will cause comparisons to Being John Malkovich, that is not a bad thing though. Paul Giamatti takes on the challenge of being a parody of himself and is able to prod and pick at who he is not just in terms of Hollywood social standing but himself as a person. The film goes so muc...( read more)
Critic Reviews
[Director] Barthes takes her notion and runs with it, and Giamatti and Strathairn follow fearlessly. The movie is rather evocative about the way we govern ourselves from the inside out. full review
Director Barthes, who also wrote the script, has an engagingly bent sensibility -- and as we see in a subplot involving a dark dream set in an orphanage, a lot of soul, too. full review
Cold Souls works precisely because its ambitions are somewhat mellow; this isn't a relentlessly high-strung picture. full review
The easiest, and laziest, way to describe the new movie "Cold Souls" is to compare it to "Being John Malkovich." full review
The film is superbly shot by Andrij Parekh and edited by Andrew Mondshein, but it's the hilarious and heartbreaking Giamatti who provides it with, well, soul. full review
The low-key satire would have benefited from more of a back story to Giamatti's character and a clearer sense of his relationship with his wife. But what we do get is compelling in the way of an indel... full review
The more elaborate the plot becomes, the sillier it gets. full review
This is a comedy, not a philosophy lesson, and thus richer in bafflement than in understanding. full review
Cold Souls is a skillfully shot, well-acted, thoroughly unconvincing, and unaffecting put-on. full review
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