Cold Souls

A surreal comedy, with dak humor, about a actor (Paul) who is having trouble with acting (because he can't separate himself from the character he interprets), and see a advertising of a service who retrieve the soul from the body (and thus you don't feel emotions), and storage them - they can borrow you a soul too. The same company also works with a Soul Black Market in Russia, with a mule scheme (and in this points enter Nina the other protagonist), from this point the story of the movie unrolls... it's a well acted movie, with a unusual and interesting theme. My score: 6,7 / 10,0.

Charles Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is perhaps one of the most cerebral and innovative films of the last decade, winning best screenplay back in 2005. It is no wonder that this film has influenced other works in cinema. However, although most movies are not too original, Sophie Barthes's debut film resembles Kaufman's work way too closely to Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malcovich, which was also crafted by Kaufman. In this Dark Indie-Comedrama, Paul Giamatti plays Paul Giamatti (Being John Malcovich anyone?), and is in midst of practicing for the play Uncle Vanya. Giamatti embraces the depressed character of the play so much, that he himself finds himself with a dark shadow over his head. To rid of his depression, he goes to a specialized company to extract his soul (replace "soul" with "memories" and you have Eternal Sunshine). After negative side effects of being apathetic and being unable to act, Giamatti finds his soul stolen and misplaced. He then searches for his soul with a Russian mule (Dina Korzun) who stole his soul in the first place. Cold Souls in all actuality is a good film, the premise is actually quite intriguing with its traces of science fiction and comedy. In addition to Giamatti's usual phenomenal acting, as he portrays multiple states having different souls. But its similarity to Kaufman's is way too close. It's basically watching the same film that Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet already made into a classic. So overall, Cold Souls is a good movie, but there's a better version that has already been made.

Un sujet fascinant que l'étude de l'âme qui aurait au moins mérité qu'on le définisse clairement avant de commencer d'envisager d'en faire un film, un film qui ne sait pas sur quel pied danser, celui de la comédie ou celui du drame ? On suppose donc que -selon le film du moins- l'âme n'est donc qu'un morceau de personnalité qu'on peut enlever et remettre plus ou moins facilement -la technologie est là pour ça- et avec un minimum d'introspection et de perturbations : le tarif syndical en gros ! à moins que ce ne soit le tarif sécu, ce qui ne donne pas lourd non plus. Certes, on voit tout de même quelque désagrément éventuel : où est passée mon âme, s'interroge Paul Giamatti, alors qu'il semble très bien se porter ou en tout cas pas pire qu'avant...! Allons, allons, Paul, âme ou pas, tout ça, c'est psychosomatique... et qu'importe si vous avez échangé votre âme avec une autre. D'ailleurs, où est passé le diable au fait ? il est reparti si vite qu'on ne l'a pas vu, écoeuré par ce trafic d'âmes sans foi ni loi ! Un sujet vaste qui aurait donc mérité un bien meilleur traitement et un autre angle d'attaque, plus rigoureux. Ce qu'Ames en stock fait tant bien que mal et vice-versa, c'est péter dans un verre à moitié vide et compter les bulles.

The critics missed this one in a big way. Not funny, not quirky, and flat-out boring. I love Paul G., but he's wasted in this film. Looks like "Being John Malkovich", but Cold Souls doesn't hold a candle to that masterpiece.