Is the film worth your time?
Cold Souls is great as a light yet insightful exploration of the nature of the soul and its relationship to us as humans. Paul Giamatti is rehearsing for the lead in Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya. The problem is, the play hits too close to home, and he’s getting Vanya’s character all mixed up with his own. It’s too much for him to take so, for relief, he turns to a soul storage company that can extract his soul and keep it for a while so he can concentrate on the play.
Thus launches a creative, quirky, metaphysical film with numerous, wonderful one-liners. If you go with the film’s basic constructs, it can leave you with some interesting questions about who we are, what we mean by “soul”, and what we’d lose if we didn’t have one. Besides that, it’s just plain funny, if you’re up for philosophical humor. If not, you might want to put something else higher on your watch list. Running time: 101 min.
Cold Souls implies a general definition of the soul. It has language, though not pervasively. One or two very brief nude images flash by during an assessment of a patient’s soul.
- Director: Sophie Barthes
- Screenplay: Sophie Barthes
- Leads: Paul Giamatti, Dina Korzun, David Strathairn, Emily Watson
- Cinematography: Andrij Parekh
- Music: Dickon Hinchliffe
- Info on IMDb
- Reviews on Rottentomatoes (75%)
- Reviews on Metacritic (69 of 100)
- Review on Filmwell
- Review on Christianity Today Movies (2.5 of 4)
- Review on Film School Rejects (grade: B)
- Review on Cinematical
- Buy Cold Souls DVD on Amazon.com
- Go to the Netflix page
- Go to the Blockbuster page
Tags: Drama
September 7, 2009, 16:59 UTC
(updated July 25, 2014, 21:01 UTC)
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