Film Review: Cold Souls (2009), Director Sophia Barthes
Film: Cold Souls
Director: Sophia Barthes
Year: 2009
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Dina Korzun
Perhaps, to start off my review, I would like to say that my reception of the film seems to be very different than that of other more “respectable” critics. The New York Times, Rolling Stone and various other publications rave about how funny or hilarious the movie was-the film even is promoted as such its tagline being “A Soul Searching Comedy.” Yet, I will say that I only laughed a couple times mostly at the film’s various inside digs so to speak that I wonder if non-film, non-acting people would get it. Maybe Joanne (the woman who lent me the movie) was right when she said that I need to smile more. But to be frank, I hardly think that’s the case. Rather, I am sitting back looking at these reviews wondering if these people who find it so sidesplitting hilarious didn’t rid themselves of their own souls.
In a nut shell, the premise is rather interesting. Paul Giamatti is playing himself-an actor who during rehearsal for Uncle Vanya becomes so overwhelmed with his soul to the point that he decides to get rid of it-quite literally. He goes to this service that extracts your souls and leaves the soulless person feeling care free and easy-going. But the problem there as you may suspect is without his soul, he can no longer perform. So he returns and demands his soul back only to find out that it’s been smuggled to Russia and placed inside of a gold digging Soap Opera actress. I won’t go into anymore details. It might just get confusing. Certainly when you just look at the plot line, it seems outrageous but that outrageousness in my opinion wasn’t exactly displayed.
Instead, there seems to be more of an emphasis on the things that have happened in some of the characters lives that have burdened them to such an extent that in order to continue living, they sell their soul. One character in particular who Giamatti at one point has possession of their soul, a Russian poet is a tragic element to the film. From what we can gather from the images that Barthes shows to us, this woman has lost a child and this loss must have been so painful that she cannot go on with it. But we see her in one scene trying to get her soul back only to be denied and to commit suicide a week later.
And I can’t help but wonder how any “comedy” save for the few jokes there are, can be found in this film. Perhaps, I am more sensitive. Perhaps, this poet who we only see in 3rd degree is such a heart-breaking and dark presence that I can’t ignore it. The “visions” of the souls when Barthes shows us are even striking, filmed in slow motion and with beautiful music in that background. Additionally, in the last part of the film, when Giamatti tries to retrieve the soul of the “mule”, the trafficker who puts others souls inside of her and sends them to America only to rid of them, we learn that over time, the residue of all the souls she has carried has filled her up to the point of being unable to take back her own soul back, makes it hard for me find this film a dark-comedy whatsoever. Rather, I feel like the idea is rather symbolic especially from an actor’s perspective. Even the fact that we have an actor playing himself, acting in a Russian play, who borrows a Russian poet’s soul, and we have this last element of the soul-residue, that it appears to me at least to be commentary on what it means to embody a character-how the writer’s own being and the human existence of that character can imprint you and the more you act, the more characters you play, the more they build up and inside of you exists their memories, the shapes of their feelings and the various parts of their souls that still remain with you after you have long since ceased to play them.
Maybe I am looking too deeply into it. I suspect it since all the reviews seem to concentrate on how funny the film supposedly is. To me though, that message was quite clear. It was almost glaring. I can’t say I can recommend this film to just about anyone. It’s only a 100 minutes long but it may be really boring for some.
My Rating 6/10
I know this review isn’t all that great and that it could be written better but in all honesty, it’s for me so I don’t care. You may comment if you like.