Movie Review Monday #45: Cold Souls

A brief synopsis: 

Paul Giamatti stars as Paul Giamatti, an actor who is essentially weary from emoting so much in his profession. Playing Uncle Vanya really pushes him over the edge, and one night after a rough rehearsal he hears about a place where you can get your soul removed and store it to get rid of most of those pesky emotions. Paul gets his soul removed, and we discover that it looks exactly like a chickpea. Soon after the soul removal, Paul realizes that he needs those emotions for his profession. He tries on someone else's soul but it's too heavy for him. He returns to the storage facility to reclaim his own only to find that it's gone. Basically we find out that there is a Russian woman engaging in soul trafficking. Also, there's a scene where Paul looks into his soul, and there are weird things there.

Whoaaaaaa.

Thoughts:

1. I like Paul Giamatti. I do still think of him as the bellboy who has a smoke with Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding though.

2. This movie was a tad too cerebral for me. But that's not saying a whole lot. I prefer mindless entertainment.

3. I thought there were some inconsistencies. Like, he seemed pretty emotional for a soulless guy. And they do say that they can only get 95% of the soul out, so I suppose any emotion can be attributed to that 5%, but I was still unconvinced.

4. Does the soul equal emotion? I don't think so, but how exactly do you define the soul?

5. There were a few funny moments. My favorite was probably when they put him in a pod to test his emotions and make sure the soul was properly extracted. One of the tests is that an adorable little bunny pops out of one of the walls. He looks at it, holds it, then shrugs and puts it back. Proof of lack of soul.

I watched this with my friends Chad, Micaela, and Nina. Chad's opinion is that Eiley was more entertaining than the film - she was especially squirmy that night. I'll let Micaela and Nina weigh in with their opinions in the comments.

In conclusion, one lobster soul up. I don't really know what that means as a film rating, but whatever. Zoe, I think you should definitely watch this one since it's philosophical and stuff. The end.