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Print"Paper Heart" is a sort of low-key riff on the "Borat" school of comedy.
Having declared herself a non-believer in romantic love, L.A. stand-up comic Charlyne Yi and filmmaker Nicholas Jasenovec set off across the country to ask happy couples how they did it.
But even as she's pooh-poohing the very idea of that one perfect person, Yi finds herself falling for boyish actor Michael Cera.
"Paper Heart" looks like a real documentary. Actually it's a Pirandellian funhouse mirror.
- Starring: Charlyne Yi, Jake Johnson, Michael Cera.
- Rating: PG-13 for some language.
- Web site: www.paperheart-movie.com/
Yes, Yi and Cera are an item (or were at the time this movie was made). But the film is a put-on. For example, that isn't the real director Jasenovec in those scenes with Yi. It's an actor named Jake Johnson who's playing Jasenovec.
Cue the "Twilight Zone" theme.
The biggest drawback here is that Yi has no screen presence. Hidden in a baggy hoody, she has blank, unemotional features and giggles nervously when in tense situations. The rest of the time she mumbles.
In short, she exhibits the personality of a celery stalk.
Two things make "Paper Heart" worthwhile.
First there are the talking-head interviewees who share their secrets for enduring love. In a movie that's mostly illusion, these couples are (or seem to be) the real deal.
And then there are the fantastic animated puppet sequences fashioned by Yi and her father, Luciano Yi. They're so inventive you wish that they'd done the whole film that way.
