Cold Souls

I expect a lot from Paul Giamatti.

If you’re going to look like that and then wilfully get up on my screen, you better be doing something extra-specially good. It’s the Danny DeVito paradox. “I’m a club footed midget with a questionable hairline and an aggravating accent. I’m going to Hollywood to become a big star.”

It sort of takes the viewer off guard. We assume there must be some great acting going on because he isn’t there for the jaw-line. (This is the inverse to the George Clooney effect. When the actor is easy to look at, you forget they’re actually putting in a bloody good performance. Up in the Air and Michael Clayton support my case.)

I know what I’m in for when Paul G is up on the screen. American Splendour, and that one with the guy from the show that what’s-her-face was on, before she became Grace in Will and Grace. You know the guy, Stewart Thomas Michael Anthony Haden Church, or whatever. Oh, and the one with the pool, and the lady, and the guy with one big arm… directed by M Night Shyamalama-ding-dong. It’s got a twist!

I have some expectations when it comes to Non-Blockbuster-Character-Driven-Movies. And I snapped up Cold Souls at the DVD store last night.

Lemme give you the premise. It’s a cracker. An actor called Paul Giamatti, coincidentally played by Paul Giamatti in this film, is rehearsing for Uncle Vanya and making a hash of it . He’s paralysed by the sort of existential angst that Russians are renowned for. Now if the Russians are renowned for a little angsty ennui; Chekhov plays a deeply competitive game. You can see how this is already folding in on itself like a lovely post-modern Matryoshka. The DVD cover points to this.

Giamatti’s agent, getting irritated with his constant sighing and whining, tells him to look into getting his soul extracted and stored for the duration of the play. After taking the advice and finding that he’s feeling a little light and empty, he rents the soul of a Russian poet… just to get him through the performance. Meanwhile, his soul is nicked from the storehouse by a “soul mule” to be used by her boss’s wife - an aspiring Russian actress on her way up the industry ladder. “She wanted Al Pacino. I dunno. Who wants an American soul?”

I won’t go further for the risk of plot spoilers, but I don’t know that I can recommend the film. I think the ideas are terrific, but it is one of the most underdeveloped scripts and films I have ever seen, and that’s a real pity. Normally, I’m reeling backward from the sharp blows to the head that big American production houses wield to labour the point, overwork the gag, and then treat me like an idiot. They don’t do that in this film, but at the risk of sounding impossible to please, it is too restrained. It’s half-baked.

The de-souled experience could have been fleshed out. There were some moments where there was going to be some really clever comedy (Emily Watson does a compressed WTF face like no other. She’s great). And for the sake of tension, the Russian part of the escapade could have been more dangerous. And, at the risk of being as post-modern as the film, I don’t think they should have cast Paul Giamatti as Paul Giamatti. He’s not very good.

I liked the film but I should have loved it. I should have loved it with my very heart and… oh, crap.