The trailer for forthcoming existential Paul Giamatti-starrer Cold Souls has been released, and it does not exactly do much to rebut the Charlie Kaufman comparisons which have been doing so much to irk the movie’s writer-director Sophie Barthes.

On limited release in the US from 7 August, Cold Souls depicts a fictionalised version of Giamatti struggling with stage-fright ahead of an appearance in Chekov’s Uncle Vanya. To allow him to safely make it through the dreaded performance, Giamatti recourses to Soul Storage; a firm run by David Strathairn’s boffin Dr. Flintstein, who is able to extract the soul from a patient’s body and place it in cold storage. But when Giamatti comes to retrieve his soul he finds it has been stolen and smuggled to Russia, where it is being illicitly utilised by a talent-deficient soap opera actress/Mafioso moll.

As noted above, first-time feature helmer Barthes has been wearied by Cold Souls being incessantly likened to the movies of Charlie Kaufman, with the director citing other offbeat cinematic visions – Woody Allen’s Sleeper, Godard’s Alphaville – as more direct inspirations. However, the trailer doesn’t exactly do much to put significant distance between itself and the oeuvre of Kaufman, with the premise of a true-life movie personality having their human essence hijacked by another individual being one that obviously invites the audience to spot the similarities with Being John Malkovich. Meanwhile, the introduction of a philosophical science-fiction element – in this case the Soul Storage centre – into an otherwise naturalistic setting is strongly redolent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Not that the Kaufman resemblances will particularly matter if Cold Souls is able to thrive on its own merits. With a bit of luck it will display rather more substance than Marc Forster and Zach Helm’s similarly high concept but ultimately rather unsatisfying Stranger Than Fiction. As he demonstrated in American Splendor, Giamatti is capable of handling comedy and pathos adeptly, and his involvement in the development and pre-production of Cold Souls will hopefully ensure he cares enough about the movie to demonstrate his best acting form. Although I’m still not clear why anyone would be nervous about performing Uncle Vanya; it’s just a load of talking. Now, the Niagara Falls in a barrel trick, an ultimate fighting bout against a sleep-deprived Mike Tyson, or attempting to jump forty-six nuns with a steamroller – those are worth getting nervous about.

Source: SlashFilm