One of the best things about “Cold Souls,” Sophie Barthes’ futuristic comedy about a man who puts his soul into storage, is how it depicts the experience of fame in New York.

As Paul Giamatti, playing an actor named Paul Giamatti, makes his way down a Manhattan street or waits for an appointment in a lobby, the fact of his celebrity subtly registers on the people around him who stop and say “Isn’t that … ?” to their companions.

These pitch-perfect moments, as well as Giamatti’s performance as an artist driven to the brink, make “Cold Souls,” if not always coherent, at least compelling.

A cerebral trip through the existential looking glass in the tradition of Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry – with a dash of Woody Allen thrown in for good measure – “Cold Souls” finally suffers from the comparisons it invites.

Barthes was reportedly inspired to write “Cold Souls” after she had a dream starring Allen, in which he has his soul extracted only to discover that it’s the shape and size of a chickpea.

If she couldn’t get Allen himself, she certainly succeeded in finding his doppelganger in Giamatti. After a near-breakdown at a rehearsal, he reads an article in the New Yorker about a company that extracts and stores people’s souls.

Giamatti travels to Roosevelt Island and the pristine office of Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn), who advises him that “a twisted soul is like a tumor – better to remove it!”

Meanwhile, a mysterious woman named Nina (Dina Korzun) arrives at Kennedy airport from Russia. As Giamatti’s path crosses with Nina’s, “Cold Souls” turns into something of a philosophical romance.

More than a wordy disquisition on the meaning of life, Barthes seems more interested in tiptoeing a delicate, not always clear line between moody tone poem and surreal screwball comedy.