Cold Souls (2009)

I love Paul Giamatti. Lets get that out of the way first (I seem to say that a lot, clearly I am boy crazy) So watching this one was a no-brainer for me, especially with its sci-fi/metaphysical plot line. The story basically is this, Paul plays himself (sort of) as an actor who can't seem to "find" his character, or is blocked, or whatever the case may be. He hears about this process where you can remove and store your soul and so he decides to do this. When being without a soul makes him too harsh, not feeling enough, he goes back and finds out he can rent another person soul and so rents the soul of a Russian Poet. There is a concurrent storyline about Nina a russian mule that is smuggling souls in and out of the country. The two stories collide and at this point the story starts to fizzle. I still liked this, don't get me wrong. Even though much of it reminded me of a less interesting Charlie Kaufmann story (much in the vein of Being John Malkovich or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) it was still a unique plot. I thought Paul Giamatti was stellar as usual and it was nice to see one of my other favorites, David Straithairn as the Doctor/Scientist who does the soul extraction/insertions. I loved the tone of this movie and thought it really had potential, but it really sort of faded out into nothing for me at the end. I was a bit disappointed in the ending, but felt it was worth the ride nonetheless. Great performances and something a little different. A nice way to spend a sleepless night.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127877/