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Cold Souls
EMAILPRINTSamuel Goldwyn Films

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 12 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by: Sophie Barthes
Directed by: Sophie Barthes
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 7, 2009
DVD: March 2, 2010
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for nudity and brief strong language
Starring Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn, Emily Watson, Dina Korzun, Lauren Ambrose, and Katheryn Winnick
Is your soul weighing you down? Paul Giamatti has found a solution! In the surreal comedy Cold Souls, 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 have found the key to happiness for which he's been searching. But, complications arise when he is the unfortunate victim of "soul-trafficking." Giamatti's journey takes him all the way to Russia in hopes of retrieving his stolen soul from an ambitious but talentless soap-opera actress. Balancing a tightrope between deadpan humor & pathos, and reality & fantasy, Cold Souls is a true soul searching comedy. (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Film Threat Whitney Borup
I love love love love loved Cold Souls. That might be because I love love love Paul Giamatti.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Darkly funny, twisty-cool existential tragicomedy, loaded with smart notions and filmed like a surrealist dream.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Barthes takes her notion and runs with it, and Giamatti and Strathairn follow fearlessly.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Paul Giamatti - that huddle of broiling instincts, out-of-control impulses and aggravated ardor epitomized in "Sideways" - you feel his soul's absence as dearly as its presence.
Read Full Review >Empire Ian Freer
Anchored by a great Giamatti performance, Cold Souls is built around a terrific idea and has serious fun with it. It also marks Barthes as a filmmaker to watch.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
Cold Souls has its flaws, and it threatens to sag into a Paul-like morbidity, but Giamatti’s anxious mien and unspectacular shamblings have never been better deployed.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
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 indelible, dreamy short story.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
He's (Giamatti) terrific throughout, although the movie, which is more clever than funny, sometimes resembles second-tier Charlie Kaufman stuff.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The chief pleasure to be derived from watching Cold Souls is that it's a journey into the unexpected.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The movie turns what could have been a tedious meta-movie exercise into a sincere dour farce.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Cold Souls entertains on its own terms, delivering irony and suspense as Giamatti discovers that his soulless self is a terrible, terrible actor.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
In this attractive, smart-enough, finally un-brave movie Ms. Barthes peeks at the dark comedy of the soul only to beat a quick, pre-emptive retreat.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Works precisely because its ambitions are somewhat mellow; this isn't a relentlessly high-strung picture. Barthes and Giamatti do more with less, turning the idea of excessive navel-gazing into a kind of game.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Robert Abele
Somewhere between the rabbit-hole absurdist comedy of Charlie Kaufman and a navel-gazing Woody Allen film is the somberly humorous indie Cold Souls.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Anthony Kaufman
It may be only in the film's last ambiguous, evocative image that Barthes and Parekh finally transcend the material and arrive at something beautiful and ineffable.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Justin Lowe
Giamatti is aptly cast, playing his own persona with awkward anxiety and suitably skewed humor.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
An amusing slice of existential whimsy with an Eastern European bent, Cold Souls posits a world in which humans can have their souls extracted and implanted in each others’ bodies.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
The premise seems profound, but the claustrophobically inert execution lacks reach or imagination.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
The movie still works as a clever little "Twilight Zone" episode with great production values, and it's an impressively ambitious debut for Barthes.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Giamatti tries very hard to put over Cold Souls -- some of his reaction shots are priceless -- but it's going to leave some people, well, cold.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Giamatti is one of the few guys who could take a joke about a chickpea-sized soul and make a meal of it.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Justin Berton
Only a temporarily compelling conflict for a feature-length film.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The more elaborate the plot becomes, the sillier it gets.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
Cold Souls begins to lose its comic focus, however, when Giamatti comes to realize that he needs his soul back.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Paul Giamatti plays himself in a dark indie comedy that's distinguished by a sci-fi theme and surrealistic touches but ends without a payoff.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Enzo P. gave it a7:
Cold Souls is well directed and acted. When I say well acted I mean Paul Giamatti. What a film for him this is not an easy movie to act in especially in his role. I'm not sure who else could of acted in this film as good as Mr. Giamatti. It was entertaining throughout the film but the one thing that really annoyed me was the ending. It made you want this film to be longer but at the same time you get bored of the soul tracking scenes and just stand up and stretch. Something else I need to add into my review is did Paul Giamatti deliver a oscar worthy performance. I've been asking that question to myself and now it's all up to other movies and how good they act. But if I had to pick one right now. I would probably say his performance is oscar worthy probably not win but nominated. So if your wondering what about the people around Paul did they act good? The answer to that question is yes mostly because the rest of the roles were easy to act in, and acting as a guy who is having soul problems(aka Paul Giamatti) is not easy to act in.
Dave D. gave it an8:
Good comedy with solid acting and a series of creative plot twists. Highly recommend.
pat s123 gave it a10:
Best movie I've seen all year. And I've seen tons... Strong performances, smart, very funny.
Alissa A gave it a9:
Beautiful movie! Paul Giamatti is totally amazing. It's funny and sad at the same time. And very soulful.
Denise T gave it a4:
A movie about soul that is without dept or much emotional honesty. It is clearly derivative of Kaufman film but without the wit and simultaneous delve into what it means to be human. Cold Souls in not funny though it tries to be clever. It's one overly long gimmick that never becomes anything greater than that. All rather soulless."
Arnold P gave it a9:
Intelligent, funny, wildly original piece of entertainment anchored by a rip roaring masterful performance Paul Giamatti.
