Cold Souls

The credible production design impresses, the camerawork offers an exquisite chill and Giamatti is in his pomp.

It's comical, yes, but glum and brooding, too, a wintry waltz through acting, underground commerce and metaphysics.

These are all very surreal, inventive ideas, heightened by the dreamlike cinematography from Barthes' partner, Andrij Parekh; the scenes shot in St. Petersburg, for example, are simultaneously gauzy and bleak.

Giamatti stammers and futzes and self-loathes with the best of 'em, and his endearing persona and droopy-dog face can move the film along even when the narrative can't.

Peppered with ingenious twists of imagination, Cold Souls walks a tightrope between intellectual slapstick and edgy social commentary.