doesn't quite cohere around its squishy metaphysical center, and sometimes swings erratically from meditative essay to screwball surrealism ...
Comment
10/05/09
Cold Souls (2009)
75
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:106
Fresh:79
Rotten:27
Average Rating:6.4/10
Consensus: Straddling existential drama and surrealist comedy, Sophie Barthes debut feature is beautifully shot and full of inventive quandaries.
Theatrical Release:Aug 7, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $700,980
Synopsis: In response to shiny, bigger, better American consumerism comes COLD SOULS, first-time feature director Sophie Barthes' surreal comedy in which souls can be extracted and traded as commodities.... [More]
Starring: Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn, Dina Korzun, Katheryn Winnick
Director: Sophie Barthes
Reviews for Cold Souls
These are all very surreal, inventive ideas, heightened by the dreamlike cinematography from Barthes' partner, Andrij Parekh; the scenes shot in St. Petersburg, for example, are simultaneously gauzy and bleak.
09/18/09
Top CriticI found myself thinking about this movie for a long time after I got out of the theater.
08/10/09
A terrific premise, but I’m not so sure about the execution.
08/10/09
Much of cinema is so predictable these days. Cold Souls isn’t.
11/22/09
Giamatti is masterful, swaddled in a heavy beard and an existential slump.
09/18/09
The premise seems profound, but the claustrophobically inert execution lacks reach or imagination.
08/06/09
The writer-director, Sophie Barthes, stays true to fairy-tale and literary notions of souls while surrounding them with sleek sci-fi paraphernalia.
09/04/09
The movie turns what could have been a tedious meta-movie exercise into a sincere dour farce.
08/13/09
Top CriticBarthes is no Charlie Kaufman -- never mind Anton Chekhov.
08/14/09
Barthe’s potential as an imaginative and intellectual writer and a director with a distinctive visual style displays more than promise in Cold Souls, her debut feature, it exhibits a self-assurance and a brilliance and should not be missed.
06/05/09
Had Cold Souls come out exactly a decade earlier, it would have seemed utterly original and daring ... because it would have beaten Being John Malkovich to the screen by a few months.
09/20/09
Moving from antiseptic clinics to the streets of St. Petersburg, there's something appropriately chilly about "Cold Souls." But if it lacks warmth or a tidy ending, it is very funny, and has plenty of intellect. Much more than a chickpea's worth.
11/13/09
For those who like Charlie Kaufman on paper but occasionally find themselves a little tested by his self-conscious meanderings in practice, the hilarious Cold Souls is a pleasingly tight and subtle execution of an eye-opening concept.
11/13/09
A dark indie comedy that's distinguished by a sci-fi theme and surrealistic touches but ends without a payoff.
08/20/09
[Director] Barthes takes her notion and runs with it, and Giamatti and Strathairn follow fearlessly. The movie is rather evocative about the way we govern ourselves from the inside out.
08/20/09
Top Critic[Giamatti is] terrific throughout, although the movie, which is more clever than funny, sometimes resembles second-tier Charlie Kaufman stuff.
08/07/09
While Cold Souls doesn't answer any of the questions it raises, it does provide a thought-provoking narrative framework from which to begin.
08/07/09
Cold Souls is a beautifully shot film, and it also becomes more than a little bit moving.
04/08/09
High concept, interesting, and well-performed, but ironically soulless. I enjoyed the journey we went on with Paul, but it had some intangible thing lacking.
09/10/09
Latest News for Cold Souls
November 22, 2009:
Win Double Passes to Cold Souls
In the tradition of Charlie Kaufman and Woody Allen comes writer-director Sophie Bathes' debut Cold Souls an existential comedy about an actor (Paul Giamatti, playing himself)... More...
August 06, 2009:
Critics Consensus: It's Quiet For G.I. Joe. Too Quiet.
This week at the movies, we got real American heroes (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, starring Dennis Quaid and Sienna Miller); kitchen chronicles (Julie & Julia, starring Meryl... More...
June 21, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review 
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