Directed by Sophie Barthes

Partly inspired by a dream of the director's in which Woody Allen has his soul extracted and ‘it looked like a chickpea', this surreal comedy in the Charlie Kaufman mould begins with great promise but in the end doesn't quite deliver much beyond a very smart idea and a set of variations on one joke. A premise that's full of comic possibilities in that dark and often crazily funny American way that's all mixed up with ideas about existence, it plays with questions of selfhood, gullibility and the old favourite the insecure artistic klutz.

Paul Giamatti plays an actor called Paul Giamatti who's struggling with the part of Uncle Vanya in a Broadway production. He seems unable to get to grips with ‘the Russian soul' and is feeling generally dejected with his life in general, so learning of a set-up called ‘Soul Storage' he attempts a soul swap. David Strathairn is superbly chilly as Dr Flintstein, head of the dubious but well-appointed company, and it's kept tantalisingly open whether the whole thing is a con working purely on the placebo effect, or whether he is some kind of mad scientist. Having his own soul first removed brings hilarity as Giamatti's inhibitions drop away, including a super alpha-male version of Vanya at his rehearsals which cause considerable alarm to his fellow actors.

But invention wanes after the Russian soul is implanted, and things begin to drag along as Paul journeys to Russia to get his own soul back, having discovered, rather like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, that you're really more comfortable in your own soul, however flawed, just like in your own back yard. It's a shame that the invention stutters, and it's amusing enough, but should be funnier, and maybe darker. I never thought I'd get tired of the lugubrious Giamatti mug, but the fact that I do here just shows how unsatisfactory in the end this film turns out to be.

Seen at Cinema Days, Empire Cinema, Rubery, Birmingham, 3 October 2009