Cold Souls

If you have recently found yourself bored with the mainstream movie offerings, consider a visit to the Angelika Film Center in Plano. This week, we watched Cold Souls, an offbeat comedy directed by newcomer Sophie Barthes and starring Paul Giamatti.

From start to finish this was a bizarre story, which, although light in humor, provoked deep thought.

Paul Giamotti plays himself, a successful New York stage actor who is struggling with his current role. The play is opening in a week and the weight of his anxiety is prohibiting him from capturing the essence of his character. In an act of desperation, he takes the advice of his manager and visits a company who specializes in soul removal.

He is promised that once  his soul is removed and safely stored in the company’s vast refrigerated storage system, he will feel as if a weight has been lifted and can then resume his regular life without the burden of his anxiety ridden soul.

As he returns to the rehearsal stage in preparation for opening night – actors and director alike sit stunned as they watch him. Without his soul, he has lost the depth of his acting and spews his lines at lightening speed and with no heart. Once he realizes this, he heads back to the clinic to have his soul replaced.

There are problems, and replacing his extracted soul proves to be  frought with obstacles, if not completely impossible. We won’t go into any details but this is where an already strange story starts to get downright weird.

You may find yourself laughing and scratching your head at the absurdity of the action on screen but then later discover you’ve spent several minutes pondering the possibilities of this reality in your own life.

We all felt this film was a welcome change; a refreshing and bizarre story that was thoroughly entertaining. It was quite hilarious to discuss the details as a group and exchange our various interpretations and opinions – something we always look forward to after a good movie. We couldn’t imagine anyone else but Paul Giamatti in this role.

The Rave Review rated this film a 3 out of 5.