Cold Souls

Cold Souls is a 2009 comedydrama film written and directed by Sophie Barthes. The film features Paul Giamatti, Dina Korzun, Emily Watson, and David Strathairn. Giamatti stars as a fictionalised version of himself, an anxious, overwhelmed actor who decides to enlist the service of a company to deep freeze his soul. Complications ensue when his soul gets lost in a soul trafficking scheme which has taken his soul to St. Petersburg. The film then follows Giamatti desperately trying to recover his soul.

While hesitant at first to go through with such a procedure, being unsure how it would affect him, Paul decides to go ahead. On visiting the clinic he discovers that most souls come out as gray matter or clouds. He decides to go ahead, declining the offer to look at his soul as it happens. He is distressed to discover that his soul comes out looking just like a chickpea. He has it stored in the clinic and returns to his life withpercent of his soul remaining. However, his life begins to fall apart he has trouble associating with or making love to his wife Claire. Lacking in emotional intelligence, he says insensitive things, such as telling a friend to just pull the plug on her comatose mother, and his acting for the Chekhov play lacks believability. Not wanting his soul back just yet, he instead obtains the soul of what he is told is a Russian poet, whose memories entice him to be curious about her and her life as well as obtain a curiosity of his own. This Russian soul allows him to play Uncle Vanya excellently, but the experience overwhelms him and he decides to get his own soul back.Pauls world is turned upside down when Nina, a Russian soul mule who transports peoples souls to and from Russia, steals Pauls soul for the wife of her boss at the Russian soulstorage operation, who aspires to be an actress. She receives Pauls soul, believing it to be the soul of Al Pacino. Her acting and happiness improve. Nina, the mule who carried Pauls soul and has become curious about him, eventually reveals the whereabouts of his soul, helping him to get it back. As the pair investigate the soul of Olga the poet, which he had rented during this period, they learn that she committed suicide after not being able to get it back after selling it. Paul and Nina get his soul back, and after looking into it through the use of special goggles to reassociate himself to it, he returns to New York a happier man. Ninas soul is found, but Paul is told that it is unrecoverable due to the

Source: Wikipedia