Paul Giamatti in "Cold Souls," Samuel Goldwyn Films, 2009

Say, you know who's not the patron saint of a burgeoning grassroots indie movement? Charlie Kaufman. That's because Kaufman writes (and now also directs) movies so utterly sui generis that nobody can get within 100 miles of any of his bizarre ideas without being accused of crass imitation, if not outright plagiarism. That seems pretty self-evident, but it somehow escaped Sophie "no apparent relation to Roland" Barthes, whose debut feature, “Cold Souls,” literally cannot be described without reference to “Being John Malkovich.”

Here, again, we have ordinary people "inhabiting" celebrities, including one celeb (Paul Giamatti) who plays an exaggerated comic version of himself. Weary of struggling to get inside Uncle Vanya for a theater production, Giamatti gets excited when he reads a New Yorker article about a new company that claims it can temporarily remove one's soul and all of its associated burdens. But the actor can't abide this empty shell-like existence, and when he returns to have his soul restored, he discovers that it's gone missing, having been sold to the Eastern European black market by a desperate Russian courier (Dina Korzun). Though the buyer really wanted Al Pacino's soul.

Barthes reportedly conceived the lead role for Woody Allen, and perhaps her film might have boasted a little more juice had the Woodman been on hand to provide his clearly defined screen persona. Giamatti, on the other hand, while a fine actor, doesn't really own any particular corner of American cinema -- it's hard to imagine someone doing a Paul Giamatti impression, for example -- which makes his presence at the center of this oddball conceit feel like little more than a cute gimmick. And while Barthes deserves some credit for recognizing that she needed to pursue a stridently un-Kaufman-like direction, the mundane, plodding tone of "Cold Souls" only makes the film seem drab and devoid of imagination. She might have filled the void with intriguing philosophical speculation (especially with a name like Barthes!), but in fact you never really get a handle on the movie's conception of the soul, even after seeing characters both with and without a soul, character A's soul inside character B, etc. In a sense, “Cold Souls” is fundamentally invisible on its own merits -- it's as if “Being John Malkovich” were actually being projected on top of it, obscuring every detail. How can you enjoy a movie you can't even see?

Mike D'Angelo is our guest critic for the month of August.

“Beeswax” and “Cold Souls” open in limited release on August 7th.

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