Cold Souls has an intriguing premise: Paul Giamatti, playing himself, reads an article about a private medical company that, for a fee, will remove your soul and place it in storage. He's suffering from low-level depression and thinks that this could be the solution. Initially, he feels great, but his acting career begins to nosedive and he reluctantly concludes that he needs his soul back. Unfortunately, it's been stolen by a smuggler and sold on the Russian black market.
The writer-director Sophie Barthes does her best to keep things moving, but the film runs out of steam about halfway through and Giamatti's pursuit of his soul across the bleak, urban landscape of contemporary Russia becomes tedious.
12A, 102 mins