Cold Souls

In the midst of an existential crisis and after intense rehearsals of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, actor Paul Giamatti (playing himself) has an emotional collapse. He stumbles upon a "Soul Storage," a private lab offering New Yorkers something quite intriguing: a relief from the burden of their souls. Paul decides to get rid of this "unbearable weightiness of being" and gets his soul extracted only to discover that it has the shape and size of a chickpea. After a difficult attempt to live a soulless life, he rents an alleged Russian poet's soul, which guides him into a strange oneiric world. Things take an unexpected turn when he discovers the existence of a Russian soul trafficking syndicate, with its corollary of soul mules, speculation, and a black market in soul trading. To make matters worse, his soul has been smuggled to St. Petersburg at the behest of a soap opera actress who happens to be the wife of the syndicate's boss.