Cold Souls

Impressions before seeing it
It sounded interesting because I'd heard it was about somebody stealing Paul Giamatti's soul. I'm always up for new ideas so I was excited to see it.

How was it?
So Cold Souls has Paul Giamatti (playing himself) wanting to "unburden" himself so that he can perform in a play, so he extracts and stores his soul. Craziness ensues. I didn't realize it was a comedy going in (I was thinking smart and creative, which it also is), but I laughed a few times and that just added to my enjoyment.

But what I loved about Cold Souls is its exploration of what a soul is. The most telling scenes, I think, are when Paul is soulless, because then we can identify what a soul is by looking at what it's not, and what it's like when it isn't there. Without a soul, Paul seems almost void of emotion, passion, social skills - things that separate us humans from, say, androids. Then he rents out the soul of a Russian poet and an engorged amount of passion seeps into his acting. But he's still not himself. The differences in the versions of Paul tend to be subtle, but very well played by Giamatti (the entire cast is quite strong, in fact). The guy at the soul company (played by David Straithairn) describes the soul as being "like an organ", but not many organs affect one's personality. Maybe it was more for the benefit of the way souls are removed and are physically tangible. I would be curious to watch a commentary on this to see the writer's thoughts on souls and how much of Paul, while playing himself, is fictitious in the movie.

Recommendation
Cold Souls is almost like a companion movie to Being John Malkovich, or perhaps even the opposite in terms of concept. They're both smart, original, and wildly fascinating - three things I love in a movie. If you enjoyed one, definitely see the other.