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)
76
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:79
Fresh:60
Rotten:19
Average Rating:6.5/10
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
A high-concept Russian flavored black comedy.
10/03/09
It's comical, yes, but glum and brooding, too, a wintry waltz through acting, underground commerce and metaphysics.
09/30/09
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09/24/09
Barthes gets bogged down in existentialism in the movie's final third, but until then she engages in some fun absurdist humor, anchored by a strong performance from Giamatti.
09/23/09
Any work that purports to be about the nature of the soul is pretty high in the pretension realm. In this case, it's also one of the most fascinating movies of 2009.
09/22/09
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
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 CriticGiamatti is masterful, swaddled in a heavy beard and an existential slump.
09/18/09
[It] wouldn't work at all without the very talented Giamatti. He has to portray a person with a soul, as well as a soulless one, and make us believe that's the case. He does so, perfectly.
09/17/09
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
the most deliciously off-beat comedy of the year
09/10/09
Giamatti stammers and futzes and self-loathes with the best of 'em, and his endearing persona and droopy-dog face can move the film along even when the narrative can't.
09/04/09
Top CriticThe 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
If I have one real beef with Cold Souls, it's simply this: I don't think it digs particularly deeply into the philosophy or the unanswerable questions dredged up by its premise.
09/04/09
The script thinks it's "oh so clever" that I just wanted to puke. A chore to sit through. It felt like it was 3 hours long, but was only half that.
08/29/09
While [it] has a certain quirky charm--mostly due to its star--the overall effect is rather pallid.
08/28/09
Cold Souls is less a movie than a cinematic decoupage that rips off pieces of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich and blends them together.
08/28/09
Peppered with ingenious twists of imagination, Cold Souls walks a tightrope between intellectual slapstick and edgy social commentary.
08/27/09
Top CriticA dreary-looking, glacially paced collection of missed opportunities.
08/25/09
Latest News for Cold Souls
August 06, 2009:
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June 21, 2009:
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