Cold Souls

This weekend I went to the Sundance Film Festival up in Park City, and it was really terrific. I waited in line for a couple hours to see a film called "Cold Souls" starring Paul Giamatti.

Cold Souls tells a story about Paul Giamatti (playing himself), who is struggling to separate himself from an unlikeable character he is portraying in his job as an actor. His agent tells him about a new scientific procedure to remove the soul from a person, thereby relieving the pain of a tortured soul. After much deliberation, Paul goes through with the procedure.

I won't go into more of the plot, because a big part of the enjoyment in this movie is experiencing it. All I will say is that the rest of the movie goes into some of the interesting questions about what life would be like if there were such a way to remove and replace souls.

It is not a comedy, but it does have some great, great jokes. When Paul is discussing the procedure, the doctor tells him that they can safely store the soul right there in New York or, if Paul preferred, ship it to their warehouse in New Jersey to avoid sales tax. Paul shudders at the thought of his soul being stored in New Jersey.

I was there for the premiere, which means that after the movie, the director, the crew, and several members of the cast (including Paul Giamatti) got up for a question and answer session. I didn't have any interesting questions to ask, but I just thought it was neat that they were up there willing to answer questions from fans and hopeful filmmakers.

All in all, it was an amazing movie, and I sincerely hope that it is released to a broader audience.